Oct 3 2009
A Minden subsidiary of Carbon Bank Ireland Ltd., Desert Hills Dairy Biodigester, LLC (DHDB), has begun plans and acquired land to construct the first biodigester in the State of Nevada at Desert Hills Dairy in Wabuska, near Yerington, Nevada.
The biodigester will capture methane from the effluent from dairy cattle to generate clean electrical energy, highly nutritious and non-toxic liquid fertilizer, a mulch by-product and enough power to run both the digester and the dairy.
"Desert Hills is the largest and best managed dairy in Northern Nevada", said Dr. Michael Ganz, CEO of the new company. "We will use proven digester technology developed by GHD, Inc. in Wisconsin to obtain maximum yields from this installation."
Methane produced from dairy cattle has a greenhouse gas warming effect 21 times carbon dioxide. A herd of 10,000 cows can produce as much as a billion cubic feet of methane annually, according to studies performed at the University of Texas and from statistics compiled by the Midwest Rural Energy Council.
"At a time when the Nevada dairy industry has been severely damaged by the recession, income from a biodigester can make the difference between economic profitability and failure," Dr. Ganz added.
Carbon Bank Ireland Ltd., the parent of the Minden-headquartered company, recently signed an agreement with the Chinese banking conglomerate, CITIC Group to harvest carbon credits earned in China to be sold globally to companies motivated to reduce their carbon footprints.
Carbon Bank Ireland, Ltd. intends to use the DHDB digester technology to construct 11 new biodigesters in Shanghai PRC.
Bill McCann, Board Chairman of Carbon Bank Ireland said, "We will encourage the management of DHDG to sell the biogas or electricity from the biodigester to utilities which offers the best price. As a Nevada-based company, we are hoping that NV Energy can match purchase prices already offered by PG&E and Southwest Gas." Today DHDG filed a 'request for proposal' with NV Energy to sell electricity to that utility.