$120 million manure-to-energy project underway in Missouri
- November 04, 2015
The project is providing $120 million in new work for Missouri supply chain, manufacturing, and construction companies and their employees.
Roeslein Alternative Energy announced the turnkey facility to create and inject large quantities of renewable natural gas (RNG) into the national grid system, created from one of the largest concentrations of finishing hogs in the Midwest, will be operational by mid-2016. The announcement took place during a recent event at Ruckman Farm, one of the nine Smithfield Foods Missouri hog production facilities involved in the largest livestock manure-to-energy project of its kind.
Phase One, which is nearly 50 percent complete, began in 2014. It involves installation of impermeable covers and flare systems on the 88 existing manure lagoons at Smithfield Foods hog finishing farms in Northern Missouri. The covers reduce greenhouse gases by preventing methane from escaping to the atmosphere, keep rainfall from entering the lagoons and reduce odor.
Phase Two involves fabricating and installing technology to purify the biogas captured by the impermeable covers and developing an inter-connection to a natural gas pipeline operated by ANR, which transverses Ruckman Farm. RNG is projected to enter the pipeline in the summer of 2016. Duke Energy in North Carolina has agreed to purchase a portion of the RNG to help meet clean energy requirements for power generation.
The hog manure from the project will produce approximately 2.2 billion cubic feet of pipeline-quality RNG, or the equivalent of 17 million gallons of diesel fuel annually.