Dickinson Faculty Farm’s anaerobic digester is 100% up and operating! This revolutionary challenge is the results of over 5 years of planning and vital contributions from our supporters. We couldn’t have made it throughout the end line with out the distinctive grants we acquired for this challenge. We thank our grant supporters under and supply a snapshot of what our last report back to a grant-making basis appears to be like like for this challenge!

In alphabetical order:

Constellation Power – Basic building price and engineering

Cumberland County Conservation District & Recycling Bureau – Cattle heavy use space, liquid waste administration system

Betty Richardson Churchill ’58 and her husband, Dan – Alumni Donation – Excessive effectivity followers and common building

Large Meals Shops & Preserve Pennsylvania Stunning – Energy shed and pipe becoming

Excessive Tide Basis – Anaerobic digester system

John Crain Kunkel Basis – Web site work, supplies dealing with, digester pipefitting

Met-Ed – Electrical engineering and wiring

Pennsylvania Division of Agriculture and Pennsylvania State Conservation Fee – Manure storage, waste administration system

Pennsylvania Division of Environmental Safety – Meals waste grinder and conveyor

South Mountain Partnership – Schooling pavilion

United States Environmental Safety Company: Supporting Anaerobic Digestion in Communities – Anaerobic digester system and meals waste assortment space

USDA Pure Sources Conservation Service – Anaerobic digester system and manure storage tank

Grant Report

Mission Title: Group Waste to Power – Small Farm Anaerobic Digestion and Schooling

The Dickinson Faculty Farm, in partnership with Triple L Farm dairy, has constructed an anaerobic digester (biodigester) system for changing meals waste and animal manure into renewable electrical energy and crop fertilizer in Cumberland County PA.  By the organic processes of microbial fermentation and methanogenesis, natural residues (group meals waste and dairy manure) are processed into biogas, a renewable, flamable gas that’s used like pure gasoline.   Our system features a mixed warmth and energy (co-gen) engine used to transform biogas to electrical energy for feeding the facility grid.  Biogas mills lead to local weather pleasant energy that’s carbon impartial.  We’re thrilled to report that after fifteen months of building, our accomplished biodigester system is functioning properly.   Now we have been changing dairy manure and meals waste into burnable biogas since late June (2024).   The co-gen engine was commissioned by challenge engineers the final week of July and we at the moment are pushing renewable electrical energy into the utility grid.   By August we anticipate to be producing sufficient renewable electrical energy to energy the farm plus 20-30 houses within the Met Ed energy grid.  The partnership with Triple L Farm dairy goes properly, the cattle are wholesome, and all equipment is operating as meant. 

Biodigesters usually are not new know-how, however within the US, they’ve been mostly deployed on very massive farms with 500 or extra cows.   Nevertheless, the typical sized dairy farm in Pennsylvania has solely 100 cows.  Our challenge makes use of newly developed engine know-how to implement a biodigester shared between two small farms, with 100-150 cows plus 2-3 tons per day of group meals waste.   The newly developed Dickinson / Triple L Farm biodigester system gives a working mannequin of a household farm-scaled power system for public, youth, and farmer schooling, with the objective of stimulating additional improvement of this know-how within the Mid Atlantic within the coming years. 

In our first yr, we’ve got already hosted a number of hundred guests from the Carlisle PA area and much past via over forty public excursions.  We’re “on the map” and have efficiently unfold the phrase via outreach companions, to the purpose that we now obtain common requests for excursions from our goal audiences – faculties, farmer organizations, teachers, and recycling professionals.  By a small grant from the South Mountain Partnership, we constructed an academic pavilion on the digester web site that facilitates internet hosting of teams in all climate circumstances.  Now we have made good use of our expertise and repute as youth environmental educators in addition to our connections within the mid-Atlantic farming group to succeed in all kinds of tourists.  Friends on the biodigester challenge have ranged from residence college kindergarten teams to highschool AP science lessons; from 4H summer time camp and a Future Farmers of America annual gathering to the Governor of Pennsylvania and Secretary of Agriculture.  Farmers and researchers from quite a few US states and 19 completely different international locations have visited the challenge web site up to now six months.

Our objective is to encourage additional deployment of biodigesters in Pennsylvania and past.  Along with free public excursions, within the first yr of the challenge we introduced the outcomes of our challenge at a number of regional conferences in collaboration with the Middle for Dairy Excellence, Penn State Extension, Pasa Sustainable Agriculture and the Skilled Recyclers of Pennsylvania.  The challenge was featured in a Penn State digital subject day and a wide range of media from the Nationwide Middle for Applicable Expertise.

MEASURABLE RESULTS:

One full and purposeful state-of-the-art biodigester system for dairy manure and meals waste.

230,000 lbs of meals waste diverted from landfills within the first challenge yr.

1000+ folks educated between excursions, classroom visits, convention shows and movies.

We supplied instructional content material to 6 completely different faculties and produced or have been featured in at the very least 4 publicly obtainable educational movies.  We additionally hosted one free public musical efficiency centered across the biodigester challenge.

A second success is in meals waste diversion from landfills.  To satisfy the power objectives of the biodigester system, we reached out to quite a few native companies to hunt extra meals waste past that generated by Dickinson Faculty.  We now have a meals waste assortment relationship with a number of eating places, a brewery, business bakery, meals financial institution, and faculties.  Different relationships in improvement embody the Carlisle hospital system and a business fruit processor.  In yr 1 of the challenge, we diverted over 230,000 lbs of meals waste from landfills into the farm’s composting system.  This ends in lowered greenhouse gasoline emissions whereas additionally conserving landfill house.

PROJECT BUDGET: Whole challenge price: $2,100,000.00 Grants and value shares have been secured from federal, state and basis sources to finish the overall challenge funds. Dickinson Faculty out of pocket prices complete over $450,000. We challenge the income technology of the challenge will probably be about $50,000 per yr, leading to a 9–10-year easy payback on the Faculty’s funding. The tutorial worth of the challenge will increase each day.

Please attain out to Assistant Director of the Faculty Farm & Power Tasks Supervisor Matt Steiman at steimanm@dickinson.edu, or farm@dickinson.edu with questions! 

+++

PA Governor & Ag Secretary go to the challenge:  https://youtu.be/GGhcGrRj_tc?si=fF1QbBSjSdKGE_Nu

Nationwide Middle for Applicable Expertise Podcast:  https://attra.ncat.org/episode-350-mid-scale-biodigester-with-matt-steiman-of-dickinson-college/

Power Imaginative and prescient award winner October 2023.  https://energy-vision.org/ev-newsletter/ev-honors-2023-clean-energy-leadership-awardees-at-october-gala/