New Brunswick Launches Its First Biogas Endeavour

March 8, 2010
Grand Falls, NB - Several partners have lined up to launch New Brunswick's first substantial biogas endeavour. The plant will produce low carbon electricity and liquid fertilizer from organic waste, and is a partnership between several parties, notably Laforge Holstein Ltd., of St. André, NB and researchers at the Bio-energy and Bio-products Applied Research Lab in Grand Falls. The research team will be figuring out the mix of organic waste that produces the best quality output.

Once complete, the facility, dubbed Laforge Bioenvironmental Inc., is expected to produce 2.5 million kilowatt-hours of low-carbon electricity each year, enough to power the farm and another 200 homes.

The biogas system will initially use manure from Laforge Holstein's dairy operations and food waste from McCain Foods' processing facility in Grand Falls. Over time, the system will be fed by several additional sources of organic waste, while reducing the region's need for waste disposal, and enhancing its output in green power.

The $2.35-million project is supported by private funds, as well as funds from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and the New Brunswick Climate Action Fund.

The project also enhances New Brunswick's research capacity, helping to bolster expertise in fermentation, which is an extremely important biotechnology platform. Establishing a bio-energy and bio-products lab for applied research at CCNB Edmundston in Grand Falls is one of the objectives identified in Action Plan for Self-Sufficiency in Northern New Brunswick, as there is a dearth of capacity in fermentation research east of Quebec.

In biogas processes, iterative applied research on the interactions between the sources of organic waste and the microbial stew that is created requires state-of-the-art facilities, in order to fine tune the conditions for a host of combinations of manure and food processing waste.

For more information on this story, please visit:
http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/front/article/976501
http://www.nbif.ca/eng/media/releases/ccnbs-kevin-shiell-funded-for-major-biogas-project/

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