February 28, 2012

 

 

New Zealand's development of an innovative biogas system has made Australian pig farms to become cleaner, greener and less stinky.

 

The system, developed by New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) also provided an alternative source for electricity and heating, said a statement from NIWA Monday.

 

The Australian pork industry association, Australian Pork Limited, collaborated with NIWA and pork producers to design and build covered anaerobic (using bacteria that can live without atmospheric oxygen) pond-based biogas systems.

 

So far, four systems were at various stages of construction, it said.

 

NIWA found that anaerobic digestion in covered waste ponds held significant potential to reduce odour and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while providing biogas as a local energy resource.

 

NIWA was working on a New Zealand prototype with local pig farmers, but Australian farmers had an incentive to use the technology to reduce farm GHG emissions through the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), which allowed them to earn carbon credits by storing carbon or reducing GHG emissions.

 

The credits could then be sold to businesses with an emissions liability, such as fossil fuel power plants or chemical processors.

 

"The system makes good sense," NIWA research engineer Stephan Heubeck, who led the development, said in the statement.

 

"Anaerobic digestion in covered ponds holds significant potential to reduce odour and greenhouse gas emissions from the farming sector. At farm scale, this energy resource can be used for heating and-or to generate electricity."

 

The first pond based biogas system that NIWA designed was a purpose-built 7,000-square-metre covered anaerobic pond for a piggery in the North Island Taranaki region.

 

The simple and low cost design proved effective and reliable over the last two years, and the biogas had been used for electricity generation and heating in a combined heat and power unit.