Cap and trade funds manure fuel
Not far from the Amish farms of central Pennsylvania, Dennis Brubaker raises 30,000 pigs a year for slaughter. In four enclosed barns, the hogs gain weight until they are shipped away to be processed for supermarkets — and while they do so, their waste will be bringing in money from California.
After Brubaker and his three brothers started Ideal Family Farms in 2007 in Beaverton, Pa., energy costs were spiking. So Brubaker started researching renewable-energy methods to reduce electricity costs. He chose a system that gave purpose to the 7 million gallons of pig waste that run through his farm every year: a million-dollar methane digester.
The 16-foot-deep concrete cauldron captures the potent greenhouse gas from the manure and routes it to an engine, where the methane combusts and generates enough electricity every day to power 100 homes and heat half the farm. “Because of the manure that we had, and the need for energy, it was just the perfect fit,” Brubaker said.
Now the farm is poised to receive thousands of dollars as an offset project through California’s cap-and-trade program. The carbon marketplace allows large California polluters to pay other businesses to reduce emissions rather than making cuts themselves.
The system was set up through AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Ideal Family Farms is one of 50 livestock projects around the country that are approved by the California Air Resources Board to offset emissions.
Not one of those state-approved offset locations is in California. But methane digesters on farms are not unheard of in California. In fact, the dairy industry estimates there are 11 operating from Kern to Sacramento
counties, and another two in Marin County. Nine California methane digesters are listed on a private offset registry, the Climate Action Reserve.
The reserve’s president, Gary Gero, says it may be just a question of time before the California digester projects are approved to receive money for offsetting emissions. But they’ll have plenty of competition from outside the state.
“It’s a question of who is going to cross the finish line first,” Gero said.
As of March, 247 methane capture projects were operating on farms across the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. While Brubaker is paying a little more than $1 million for the system on his pig farm, recent state grant information suggests the cost could reach $6 million on a California dairy farm.
State’s tough standards
The Western United Dairymen, a California dairy farmers association, says environmental standards in California make it more difficult to operate a manure digester here.
Air-quality rules require methane engines in the farm heavy Central Valley to run extremely cleanly, said Paul Sousa, director of environmental services at the dairy farmers group. That can require expensive technology, he said, and the price of electricity that farmers sell back to the grid is not high enough to help pay off the cost.
The California Air Resources Board acknowledges that farmers running methane engines need a higher level of technology to comply with local air quality rules.
“Because of the extreme air conditions in the valley, they have to have very stringent controls,” said Stanley Young, spokesman for the air board.
However, the economic feasibility of capturing methane on large farms may be changing with the influx of state dollars. For some farmers, it already has. In July, five dairy farms in the Central Valley received a total of $11.1 million from the state Department of Food and Agriculture for the startup or redevelopment of digesters. The money was made available through the cap-and-trade program.
More funding in budget
Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised 2015-16 budget pencils in an additional $20 million for dairy digester systems. The reduction of the heat-trapping gas is one of his key proposals for reducing greenhouse gas levels to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
The proposed $20 million is a fraction of the $500 million over five years that the Western United Dairymen requested. According to the group, Brown’s proposal would “barely make a dent” in curbing greenhouse gas emissions on California farms.
But back in Pennsylvania, Dennis Brubaker says even just a few thousand dollars in revenue to offset California emissions will help sustain his project. He’s expecting his first check this year.
“It’s pretty cool that we can have joint partnerships in trying to help make the environment better from one end of the country to the next,” Brubaker said.