how colorado is turning food waste into electricity

The Americans threw away our third food.
But some people think it\'s rubbish and some think it\'s business opportunity.
A new facility called The Heart belt biogas project is taking wasted food from the most populous part of Colorado and turning it into electricity.
Through a technology known as anaerobic digestion, spoiled milk, old pet food and large barrels of grease combine to produce gas with beneficial bacteria in a large number of tanks.
I went to check the facilities.
It is located on a rural highway in northern Colorado, only a stone\'s throw from large beef cattle farms and dairy farms, and a short drive from the state\'s populous waste area.
The core of the city.
Follow your nose and know you are in the right place.
There\'s no way around: This place stinks.
This smell is a mixture of cow feces and expired produce.
\"Yes, there\'s a lot of good taste here,\" Scott Pexton said . \" Together with A1 Organics, he said that A1 Organics is a compost company that handles the food waste portion of the plant.
Six cream
Colored tanks in the center
Can accommodate 1.
7 million gallons of food waste and manure mud
Work like a giant stomach.
Almost everything you can eat can go into the biogas digesters.
Like our own digestive system, the last thing that comes out is liquid (a water-
Technology based on sludge)—
Captured in the lagoon and reused during digestion; a solid —
Used for compost; and a gas.
The third thing. methane gas —
Is the owner of the heart zone factory really interested.
Methane is captured and sent into an interstate pipeline for power generation.
If all the food waste processed by the factory is sent to the dump, it will still release methane when it rot and breaks down
But these wasted gases can penetrate directly into the atmosphere and cause climate change.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas.
In fact, most of the 130 billion pounds of food wasted by Americans in 2015 were in landfills, releasing methane.
So in this way, the biogas digesters can solve some problems at the same time.
A recent report by the nonprofit ReFED found that biogas digesters not only generate renewable energy, but also divert food waste from landfill sites, reduce harmful emissions and provide in the process
\"We \'ve seen a lot of this type of biogas digesters in Europe, and we \'ve just started to see them appear in the United States. S.
Darby Hoover, resource expert at the Natural Resources Conservation Commission, said he contributed to the revised report.
Hoover said that anaerobic digestion is one of the big problems to solve the problem of food waste.
But biogas digesters are expensive and many need policy fixes to get started.
Cities like Sacramento, California
Efforts are being made to meet high standards for renewable energy production, and biogas generators like Heartland are being used to meet these standards.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility area is locked in 20-
Annual agreement with EDF Renewable Energy
A private development company operating in the heart
Buy all the gas generated there.
But in many ways, the relationship between Sacramento and the heart is unusual.
More often, Hoover says, cities abandon the use of biogas because they have to bear the cost of building and operating these facilities themselves.
\"With biogas digesters, the cost of your project is often high,\" Hoover said . \".
\"The city may not see the value of something like a digester.
Critics say that while biogas digesters deal with the consequences of food waste, they do not address the root causes of the problem.
Consumers throw away an amazing amount of food every year: knowing that there is a machine that can clean up their garbage can alleviate some of the guilt of throwing away food.
As a result, Virginia Tille, a recycling specialist at the Environmental Protection Agency, said the biogas digesters were \"free of silver bullets \".
She said it is important to focus first on \"focusing on opportunities to reduce waste.
The federal government announced the first National
The 2015 food waste reduction target calls on Americans to cut food waste by half by 2030.
Till says it is admirable to make renewable energy from food that cannot be eaten.
But the best way to waste food is to provide people with food.
Almost one in seven America. S.
Family food is not safe, not sure where the next meal came from. \"That fact —
Plus, we wasted the third kind of food we produced.
These two facts get me up in the morning, \"said Till.
Scott Pexton of Heartland also agreed.
\"Of course we believe in the idea of cutting prices first,\" he said . \"
But even if people don\'t throw away very good food anymore, even the most attentive and responsible retailers, processors and farmers can waste something from time to time.
People will still throw away banana and corn skins.
In this case, the large mechanical biogas digesters on the eastern plains of Colorado are waiting there.
Luke Runyon reports for the Harvest Public Media, based at the KUNC member station in Greeley, Colorado.