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An Engineering-Economic Model for Analyzing Dairy Plug-Flow Anaerobic Digesters: Cost Structures and Policy Implications

Authors :
C. R. Faulhaber
D. R. Raman
Robert T. Burns
Source :
Transactions of the ASABE. 55:201-209
Publication Year :
2012
Publisher :
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), 2012.

Abstract

Treating animal wastes through anaerobic digestion (AD) yields methane-rich biogas that can be used for power generation or heating, and a nutrient-rich digestate that can be land-applied as fertilizer. Furthermore, AD reduces odors from stored and land-applied manures. Despite these benefits, AD deployment rates in the U.S. are only 5% for dairy farms identified as suitable for AD by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The objective of this study was to analyze the economic and technical limitations of farm-scale anaerobic digesters using a simple model permitting insight into the fundamental constraints on the technology. A model was developed to determine the cost of methane produced via AD based on operation size. Dairy plug-flow systems were modeled because of their well-documented economic performance, and model validation used data from AgSTAR's FarmWare program. The analysis shows that farm size is critical to make digestion-derived methane cost-competitive with natural gas. At low herd sizes (

Details

ISSN :
21510040
Volume :
55
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Transactions of the ASABE
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........e979c250ee3131d4f9fe58a8eabb7a6d
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.41247