Heartland Renewable Energy (HRE) is developing a biogas production plant in Weld County, Colorado that will supply pipeline-grade “natural gas” (clean methane) to North America’s natural gas pipelines. The plant will be located geographically in an area of one of the highest concentration of dairy farms and feed lots in the United States. In addition to natural gas revenues, this biogas plant will also generate revenue through the sale of soil amendment, from the sale of carbon credits and the sale of carbon dioxide that is scrubbed from the biogas.

PROJECT OVERVIEW
The gas production plant will utilize proprietary anaerobic digester technology for producing commercially attractive volumes of methane rich gas that will be scrubbed of impurities and then injected into a natural gas pipeline. The term “anaerobic digester” simply refers to an airtight vessel in which various organic waste (such as cattle manure, food wastes, agricultural wastes and other digestible feed-stocks) are placed along with naturally occurring microbes that eat the feedstock. The microbial digestion byproducts are methane and carbon dioxide, which are captured and processed.

PROJECT LOCATION AND ANALYSIS

HRE has obtained an 80-acre site for the digester plant (with an option on an additional adjacent 80-acres); has secured adequate water supplies; and has received a commitment letter for sufficient electric power to be brought into the HRE site by the Poudre Valley Rural Electric Authority (PVREA, Windsor, CO). HRE secured feedstock agreements with long term proprietors and a rated counter party; has negotiated a long term off take agreement of the pipeline grade gas (“green gas”) to an investment grade rated California utility which will assist the utility in meeting its mandated Renewable Portfolio Standard requirements.

The site is located approximately 45 miles north east of Denver, Colorado near the town of Greeley in Weld County. The anaerobic digestion plant will reside on approximately 80 acres. Weld County’s cattle population totals approximately 600,000 head. In fact, one 1,200-pound dairy cow alone produces the same amount of waste as 23 humans.

Over 48 million tons of waste is created by Colorado’s 2.6 million cattle. To meet the projects’ manure feed stock requirements, HRE requires the waste of approximately 90,000 head. Cow manure contains nitrogen compounds, which can overwhelm waterways. Algae blooms develop as a result of the contamination. Thereafter, nitrogen can pollute groundwater and wells, which compromises safe water consumption for humans.

Since 1984, total US energy imports of oil and gas grew from about 27% of total US consumption to more than 58%; in 2007, 59% of the U.S. oil supply was from oil imports. Further, the gap between domestic energy consumption and energy production is projected to continue to broaden into the foreseeable future.

Heartland plants are scalable and will consist of multiple anaerobic digesters based on HRE’s proprietary technology, with the digesters producing methane-rich biogas from various biodegradable feed-stocks (primarily, food wastes and cattle manure), which are pretreated to maximize biogas output. The biogas is subsequently ‘scrubbed’ to yield pipeline-grade natural gas (clean methane) that is boosted to about 1200 psig for injection via a “tap” into the transporting pipeline.

Heartland’s Engineer-Procure-Construct (EPC) contractor, ATI, Inc., will provide the complete gas plant on a turnkey basis. ATI is a firm with extensive experience with Anaerobic Digestion and wastewater treatment plants. This Heartland plant is scaled to produce approximately 5,000 MMBtu/day of clean methane and will include up to twenty four full-scale digesters.

HRE’s plants will be highly automated through the incorporation of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (“SCADA”) systems in each plant. The SCADA system will provide for monitoring and control of multiple plant functions similar to current industry practice in oil refineries, electric power plants, and food processing plants.

Ongoing operations of the HRE gas plant will be contracted to industry experts such as Southwest Water and other O&M firms which have extensive experience in similar types of operational facilities.

FEEDSTOCK AND OFFTAKE AGREEMENTS

In order to mitigate the long term financial risk associated with a renewable biomass to energy facility, HRE has executed long term contracts to reduce market volatility including feedstock agreements and long term biogas and by product sales contracts.