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Informational Posts
When it comes to making healthier choices about the food we eat, it can be difficult to know where to start. What does organic mean? Should we choose grain fed or grass finished beef? Free-range or free-run? What’s the difference anyway? Melanie Epp, a freelance writer who works in agriculture, will bring the answers to these questions and more, directly From the Farmer’s Mouth.
Stanton Farms produces poop power – enough, in fact, to power an entire small town.
Owner, Laurie Stanton, is a fourth generation dairy farmer who hails from Ilderton, Ontario. Stanton Farms currently milks 700 cows, which on average produces 25,000 litres of milk a day. Each dairy cow consumes up to 75 pounds of feed a day, so it’s no wonder the farm produces up to 40,000 gallons of liquid manure every day.
“One of the issues, of course, with the operation is what to do with the waste that’s generated,” says Gary Fortune, Stanton Farms’ energy consultant. “What we’ve developed here is a very innovative approach to dealing with the waste, turning it into a source of fuel.”
Here’s how it works.
Throughout the day, as cows chomp away happily they drop manure onto the floor below. Several times each day a giant sprinkler head rises out of the alleyway and flushes the manure into a trough below. The solid waste then passes through an underground sewer system, which collects and carries it over to a biogas facility.
This facility contains eight individual tanks, each some 33 feet high and 13 feet in diameter. The tanks act as an anaerobic digester - they break down solids without the use of oxygen. The material is then sent through a heat exchange system where its temperature is raised to 37 degrees Celsius. Inside the tanks, bugs latch onto the solids and chomp away, creating gas. The gas rises to the top where it’s extracted and pumped over into a container unit in a separate building.
This building houses generators where the gas is burned to create electricity. That electricity is sent out the lines in front of the farm and into the neighbouring community to be used in their homes and businesses. The process, which has since been coined “reliable renewable,” generates power 24/7.
“In our first stage, we’ll generate 1.3 megawatts of power,” says Fortune. “Enough to power the average requirements of up to 800 homes. That’ll be the entire town of Ilderton and then some.”
Who knew that so much waste could produce so much energy? While some towns’ claims to fame include home of the world’s largest nickel and the world’s largest Muskoka chair, Ilderton might just be the only town in Canada that runs entirely on poop power.
Now that’s what you call a clean operation.
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Melanie Epp is a freelance writer, amateur locavore, passionate foodie, novice gardener, and beginner triathlete. She writes about agriculture, real estate, and health & wellness. Visit her at melanieepp.com.
