May 2004 Newsletter

Wendell Looks to Become Home of Methane Plant

Tuesday, March 16, 2004
By Megan Hinds, Twin Falls Times-News

Thousands of homes and businesses could be warmed by natural gas produced by the cows of local dairies within the next few years, an Idaho Falls renewable energy company says.

The city of Wendell will announce plans Wednesday for the construction of a 32-acre "green energy" industrial park to be built three miles east of Wendell, Mayor Paul Isaacson said. The industrial park could eventually generate more than 100 jobs over the next five years, he said.

The anchor business within the park, due to be constructed by 2006, will be a methane gas processing facility operated by Idaho Falls-based Intrepid Technology and Resources.

The methane, a biogas that can be used like natural gas or propane, will be produced through the use of anaerobic digesters from the manure of cows on local dairy farms, Isaacson said. The anaerobic digesters will use digester tanks containing bacteria that break down organic waste.

The construction of the first of two anaerobic digesters planned by Intrepid will begin in about two weeks on the Whitesides Dairy north of Rupert. Another digester will be constructed and in operation by July on a dairy west of Wendell, the company says. At the request of the owner, the name of the dairy has not yet been released to the public.

Unpurified methane will arrive at the industrial processing facility via a low-pressure gas pipeline that will connect participating dairies, said Intrepid Vice President Jake Dustin. Construction of the anaerobic digesters, gas pipeline and methane processing plant is part of a $40 million, three-phase, five-year plan to develop the Magic Valley Renewable Gas Field, Dustin said.

The plan will be funded through a combination of equity and debt financing, with the majority of funding coming from independent investors and Intrepid shareholders, he said.

"Our objective is to get as much gas as possible and to sell it on the market," Dustin said. "And that gas comes from anaerobic digesters."

The pipeline, once constructed and connected to the Wendell processing plant, will have the potential to carry the gas produced by 100,000 cows on 20 to 30 dairies in the area west of Wendell, Dustin said. That amounts to more than a billion cubic feet of methane gas per year -- equivalent to more than 10 million gallons of propane. The processed methane will be sold by Intrepid on the natural gas market to energy suppliers and will also be used by dairies providing the methane.

Due to its location east of Wendell, the Whitesides Dairy will not be connected to the pipeline, Dustin said. Methane produced there will be trucked from the dairy in liquid or gas form to be processed elsewhere.

As the anchor industrial plant, the Wendell methane processing facility could spur the construction of other "green energy" production plants in the future, including ethanol and biodiesel facilities, Isaacson said.

The methane produced at the Intrepid facility could provide the fuel for ethanol and biodiesel plants, which require large amounts of energy for production, Dustin said.