Why go electric?

I spent another $50 earlier this week to have the Toyota dealership service my Prius. Normally, this doesn't bother me too much, but the charge came just after finding the "Service" section of the Tesla Roadster entry while browsing Wikipedia:

Electric vehicles require much less service and maintenance than internal combustion engine vehicles. They do not require routine oil changes. They do not have any tailpipe emissions and therefore do not require any muffler or exhaust system work. They do not require replacement spark plugs, pistons, hoses or belts. The conventional parts of the car—including the brakes, body work and any interior and HVAC work—can be performed by any qualified automotive technician.

I already know that I can't fit into a Tesla Roadster, but the Model S could be my option for breaking free of auto maintenance costs forever. That, and instant torque propelling a sedan from 0-60 in 5.6 seconds!

Rainier Biogas gets carbon offset support courtesy of NativeEnergy

SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt., March 22, 2011 — A project in Washington State will support local dairy farms and reduce approximately 4,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. eBay, Stonyfield Farm, Brita, and Effect Partners are enabling this project through the purchase of NativeEnergy’s "Help Build" carbon offsets.

Conventionally, manure storage on dairy farms results in the release of methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than CO2, into the atmosphere. The Rainier Farm Biogas Project in Enumclaw, WA, will avoid this pollution through the construction of a manure digester.

Three family-owned farms will feed their manure to the sealed, heated system. None of the farms is large enough to support a digester by itself, but through collaboration, they can jointly support it. The digester will capture and burn the methane to produce electricity in a 1-megawatt electric generator, which will deliver renewable energy to the region’s electrical grid.

The developer, Rainier Biogas LLC, turned to NativeEnergy to help provide financing for the project. By selling the carbon reductions that will result from the digester, NativeEnergy was able to provide critical upfront funding for construction. Through NativeEnergy’s innovative "Help Build" carbon offsets, eBay, Stonyfield Farm, Brita, and Effect Partners were able to purchase a share of the verified emissions reductions that the project will produce over a 10-year period.

Jeff Bernicke, President of NativeEnergy, said: “This project shows that, through a cooperative effort, our "Help Build" carbon offsets bring new carbon reduction projects on line.

Kevin Maas of Rainier Biogas, the project developer, noted: “Everyone in the community will benefit from this project. It will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect the area’s sensitive rivers and streams, and provide low-cost bedding for local farmers.”

To learn more, view the Rainier project page.

About Native Energy

NativeEnergy is a leading provider of verified carbon offsets and renewable energy credits. NativeEnergy’s "Help Build" carbon offsets help finance the construction of Native American, family farm, and community-based carbon reduction projects. For more information, visit: www.nativeenergy.com.

About Rainier Biogas

Plugging into the century-old dairy community nestled at the foot of Mount Rainier, Rainier Biogas is the third anaerobic manure digester developed in Western Washington by Farm Power Northwest. The two previous projects improve manure handling on partner farms while each producing up to 750kW of electricity. Rainier Biogas is proud to commit to more long-term investment and cooperation with the family-run dairy farms in the Pacific Northwest. For more information, visit www.farmpower.com.

CONTACT:  NativeEnergy Contact:
     Thomas H. Rawls
     VP, Sales & Marketing
     802-861-7707 x215
     tom.rawls@nativeenergy.com

     Rainier Biogas Contact:
     Kevin Maas
     360-424-4519
     farmpowernw@gmail.com

The Continuing Reign of Finance?

I graduated from Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI) with an MBA in sustainable business three and a half years ago. Farm Power was only a few months old, and one of our biggest hurdles was raising capital. While I had discussed this extensively with other interested classmates, our education hadn't focused much on finance--with the notable exception of one spectacular Entrepreneurship class, we had spent little time on the mechanics of debt, securities, and such.

Today, Farm Power has perfected its formula for funding capital-intensive projects, borrowing millions of dollars from sustainable banks while raising equally large amounts from investors and grants. I haven't kept up with the curriculum at BGI, but I have noticed that guest speakers these days are definitely trending towards finance. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the topics end up being on the service side of the industry--analysis, wealth management, and such. And all I can think of is: "None of this really matters!"

It probably sounds strange to hear this, so let me explain: what I see is an economy with vast amounts of money sloshing back and forth, try to cheat basic laws of physics and biology. New sources of energy or sustenance can't be conjured out of thin air, so finance turns to speculating in derivatives of the tangible. The simple existence of hedge funds and their manager compensation norms is evidence enough that there is no shortage of capital willing to pay obscene fees for a chance to cut corners on actual wealth creation. Meanwhile, creating sustainable new sources of food, electricity, or transport is hard, risky, and requires a long-term view.

What this world needs is not another level of money managers or more analysis of mutual funds or even another investment bank; what it needs is more people working to create long-term value that is actually worthy of financing. Our system of worshiping at the temple of finance may or may not be beyond help, but there are ways for truly good ideas to access capital and investors who want to provide it.

What about our own waste?

After dozens of posts, readers may be growing impatient with my focus on dairy cow manure. So, for a change of pace, I turn to pondering the organic waste that comes out of own homes--the majority of it food waste but also excrement. This potential energy leaves by two main routes--the sewer system (from both toilets and sink disposals) and the garbage system. In rough terms, each American dumps and flushes a pound of "fuel" every day, to be dispersed in sewage-treatment plants and landfills. I say dispersed because although both wastewater-treatment plants and landfills can be designed to capture some of the energy in garbage and sewage, their main goal is to make waste go away. And the material that arrives at these plants is already heavily diluted by water or inert solids, so energy production remains inefficient.

But what if we diverted all this organic waste--perhaps sending it in special pipes to small, energy-producing local digesters? One pound per person per day, converted into biogas, can be burned to produce about one kilowatt-hour of electricity--with enough extra heat (left over after warming the digester) to bring five gallons of water to a comfortable temperature for showering. Unfortunately, the typical American needs about twelve kilowatt-hours for household use, along with similarly excessive amounts of heat.

So there, in short, is why I focus on dairy manure: it produces far more energy than the farms could ever use and involves a lower "yuck factor" than what we dump and flush!

Lynden Approaching Completion

Four months after we broke ground, our Lynden digester project is almost ready to come online. The Bellingham Herald ran a story on our progress (and a great photo of guys from Andgar working on the flare). There are also a lot more pictures in the Whatcom Farm Friends photo galleries on the project.

Spreading the word

In a few weeks, I'll be leaving the Pacific Northwest (for the first time in almost a year!) to go speak about the Farm Power experience. On October 18th, I will be joining hundreds of bioenergy professionals in Des Moines for the BioCycle "Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling" conference. BioCycle magazine provides regular coverage of the digester industry along with composting and other types of waste recycling, so they draw a wide audience and we hope that BioCycle will bring this conference to our region in the future--by then we hope to have many more projects to talk about.

Meanwhile, our friends at NW Farms & Food recently wrote an story on our progress; like all the articles on the website, this one combines depth with clarity, but it also managed to capture the genesis of Farm Power better than I'd ever heard it expressed--with one of my quotes, no less!

"I was thinking about manure digesters [in 2004], but I figured that by the time I could do anything, half the farmers in the county would already be working on their own project. Lo and behold a year later — nothing. Nothing at all!”

“So that’s when we headed down this path,” he said. “If nobody was doing it, yet it was clear that it could be done, that it should be done, then we just had to figure out a better way to do it!”

And we continue to work every day to get digesters built throughout the Pacific Northwest, coming up with little innovations that--unexceptional by themselves--add up to real renewable energy projects that otherwise wouldn't happen. Construction on Farm Power Lynden is nearly complete, and regular readers know we're pushing forward on other biogas installations. I'll try to post a little more often this fall to keep spreading the word online as well as on the road.

Summer in the manure business

While many people slow down a bit during the summer, we at Farm Power have been steadily accelerating. Our builder Andgar has added a photo page for our Lynden project, showing the rapid construction progress there. It appears likely that our second digester will be completed in half the time it took to build the first one--it helps to build during the summer rather than starting in November!

We've also been getting out in the community a bit, finally attracting the attention of business/tech website Xconomy after giving an update at the Northwest Energy Angels summer social. And two different websites dedicated to spreading good ideas have Farm Power material: NWCleanTech--a new site focused on "connecting regional innovation"--added Farm Power to its list of featured Pacific Northwest companies and also put us on their cool interactive map, while a member of Planet Forward--a project from George Washington University--put together a multi-media post called "Visiting an Anaerobic Methane Digester" after touring the Rexville facility.

Speaking of tours, we've scheduled one more tour for Saturday, August 21st. We'll be meeting at 11am by the picnic shelter next to the Rexville Grocery, giving a little overview, and then proceeding to the digester. Afterwards, I look forward to relaxing back at the Rexville's mini-restaurant and continuing to discuss renewable energy; we're still raising money for a little while longer, so come get your questions answered.