Anaerobic Digestion 101: How to Make Renewable Natural Gas from Organic Waste

Farm Powered anaerobic digestion is a powerful process that recycles organic waste, mainly food and beverage waste from the manufacturing sector and dairy cow manure, into renewable natural gas. It’s a pretty simple process – think of it as a giant Crock-Pot that is full of methanogens – which are naturally found in cow manure - that gobbles up the food waste and the manure and creates biogas. That biogas is then cleaned, upgraded, and becomes a powerful tool to fight climate change – renewable natural gas. A drop-in replacement for fossil natural gas and is one of the tools in our toolbox to mitigate climate change.

Food waste is a fact of life, whether it be in a home or at a factory. If a batch of ice cream has too few chocolate chips, it can’t be sold. Food and beverage companies have to make a choice of how they choose to dispose of their inedible product – send it to a landfill or find a higher purpose for that waste. Turning that inedible waste into renewable energy is not only good for the planet, but can help a company reach its zero-waste to landfill goals, and gives them a great sustainability story to tell their investors and consumers.

For dairy farmers, manure presents some smelly challenges. Like food waste, you can’t have dairy cows without cow manure. There are several ways that farmers and food and beverage companies can handle their unavoidable waste. We believe that recycling them together through Farm Powered anaerobic digestion provides a sustainable solution for both dairy farmers and food and beverage manufacturers.

There are also many benefits of recycling food waste and dairy cow manure through anaerobic digestion; creating positive impacts on waste management, renewable energy generation, greenhouse gas reduction, and sustainable agriculture.

Vanguard Renewables is taking its Farm Powered process nationwide. Learn more at www.vanguardrenewables.com