Australian piggery turns manure into carbon credits
26 Oct 2012
In a first of its kind initiative, an Australia piggery in New South Wales has become the first animal farm to turn its manure into carbon credits.
Blantyre Farms, near Young to the state's south east, installed a biogas generator at a cost of $1 million to capture methane from the manure of its 22,000 pigs and turn it into electricity, which is then distributed to the national grid.
Co-owner Edwina Beveridge told Carbon and Environment Daily her farm was the first piggery in Australia to install a commercial-scale system to generate power from methane, although there are "half a dozen hot on our tail".
The technology would also be well-suited to poultry farms and abattoirs, she said.
The report said although the farm can generate CFI credits and renewable energy certificates from the project, Beveridge said its main benefit is that the farm has gone from paying out $15,000 a month for electricity and gas to earning $5,000 a month from the power it sells back to the grid.
A further windfall from carbon credits awarded by the Australian government to the farm for the greenhouse gas emissions it avoids comes from the capture and burning of the methane.
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