03/29/05 New methane digester project in Idaho

The Whitesides Dairy north of Rupert, Idaho employs some of the industry's latest technology. Brent Whitesides knows everything there is to know about each of his four thousand cows from date and place of birth to the amount of milk she gave ten minutes ago. When he and brother Steve partnered with Intrepid Technologies of Idaho Falls they were looking for a better way to deal with manure. WHITESIDES "We have a challenge with our liquid manure. Liquid manure does not stack and is very difficult to haul. We have a machine is a low vacuum machine they call it. Take this liquid manure right out of the cow corrals daily and run it through our digester. Take the methane gas out of it, process it, run it over a separator and then get it back into a dry form that we can handle better." From an input well the manure goes into one of two tanks, each 32 feet tall and both containing the manure's natural bacteria at a regulated 100 degrees. FRAZEE "They start to break down that manure just like we're breaking down food in the body. We're breaking that down into fundamental building blocks like methane, water and carbon dioxide." For Intrepid's Brad Frazee the natural gas that's produced is the product his company is seeking. Whitesides also now uses some of that gas to heat his dairy water and save thousands on the propane bill. WHITESIDES "I would recommend it. Obviously I think it's the way to go. But give us another six months or whatever and then we'll be able to tell you for sure." Frazee and Whitesides agree that this is a work in progress. They're only two months into methane production and Frazee knows a lot of Idaho dairymen are watching. FRAZEE "Well I think they have good cause to be hesitant. There has been a lot of technologies put in front of the dairymen that's supposedly going to solve a lot of different issues. And in fact there has been no silver bullet out there and I wouldn't claim we have a silver bullet here either. Intrepid's next project will begin later this year with a twelve-tank digester at a Jerome dairy, which handles ten thousand cows. That would anchor a low pressure pipeline that will send the gas eight miles to a processing facility which is proposed for the small community of Wendell. With 350 thousand livestock in that part of the valley it could become Idaho's 'gas field' with a potential 30 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Line on Agriculture Bill Scott