Dry Fermentation Process Biogas Plant is the First in US at University of Wisconsin

The first dry fermentation anaerobic bio-digester in the country, which will convert biowaste into biogas, has been instructed to go ahead by the College of Wisconsin Oshkosh. The green energy facility has been designed by BIOFerm Energy Systems, and the biogas produced is combusted in a 370 kWh biogas CHP cogeneration system, to be supplied by 2G-CENERGY.

This new Renewable energy source is going to be found close to the Dempsey Trail, opposite to the Witzel Avenue Campus Service Center at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. The plant will produce 4183 MW of heating energy to the campus, and 3071 MW of electricity each year, almost all of which should be used on the College Campus site, with any extra power sold to the electricity distribution grid locally.

This can be viewed as green energy which will replace energy which would have otherwise been made using normal fuel based power sources like oil, gas, or coal. By employing a waste product in this fashion as the fuel, UWO will be manufacturing power from an laternative energy source which should reduce carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Additionally the waste will be discarded in a way which won't one day harm the environment by filling up a rubbish heap. If all biowastes were employed in this way to produce energy the planet's production of carbon-dioxide would be reduced. As carbon-dioxide is thought by many to be the root cause of greenhouse gas warming of our world this may have an extraordinarily advantageous result in reducing global warming. The dry fermentation process was at first developed in Germany as the most efficient system to provide biogas, electricity, heat and fuel to automobiles from replenish-able biowaste. Dry fermentation is a technique which works independently of other energy supply routes.

If also done by others in the area this sort of power plant creates a local or regional energy cycle. Promoting such plants inspires the development of autonomous power production not dependent on enormous distribution networks. This diversification if implemented to its fullest could have further benefits in stabilizing and reducing energy costs.

We apreciate that some of you aren't acquainted with the term "biomass". Biomass pertains to any plant matter grown from many species and a broad variety of biodegradable wastes. To treat the varieties of different biomass feedstocks, and produce biogas, technologies like the dry fermentation process are needed, which supply a high feed flexibleness. Biomass is introduced to the fermentation chambers in groups.

In most designs a quantity of biomass is fed into a fermentation chamber and left to digest in a culture of micro-organisms, for roughly twenty-eight days. In this time the biomass conversion process runs immediately thru the biological fermentation phases, using a carefully balanced mixture of needed substrates and bacteria.