A quiet, open piece of land in Louisville Township, near Shakopee could soon be home to a new technology that could help reduce Minnesota鈥檚 carbon footprint – an anaerobic digester. This is a machine that almost has some human qualities. 鈥淎t the simplest level, an anaerobic digester is like your stomach,鈥� declares Bill Keegan, the president of Dem-Con Companies, a Scott County waste processing and recycling business.
Dem-Con wants to build a $100 million facility that would convert yard waste, food scraps, and other organics into natural gas. Keegan says the process could generate 185,000 MMBtus of natural gas a year, for the 30-year life of the project. One MMBTu is equal to about 28 cubic meters of gas.
鈥淚t鈥檚 oxygen-free, it鈥檚 a closed vessel,鈥� Keegan explains. 鈥淵ou can put food waste in, actually culture this with a bacteria similar to your stomach, and food waste goes in, and liquids and solids and gases come out.鈥�
The process would also produce a byproduct called biochar, a kind of charcoal that can improve soil health, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and improve soil moisture, Keegan notes.He says the plant could produce 10,000 tons of the material annually.