GREEN MAP
Energy:
- Manitoba opportunities
The 10 million hogs currently in Manitoba could produce enough biogas to generate the electricity to power 35,000 homes. Adding the waste from chickens, cattle and human, including food waste, could produce even more energy. Biogas plants powered by a mixture of animal and human wastes are becoming fairly common in Europe, and even in parts of Canada where energy is not as cheap as it is in Manitoba.
Currently Manitoba Hydro charges consumers at a rate of $0.06/kilowatt. This is just over half of the $0.12 that consumers pay in Ontario. In Europe, rates are even higher, encouraging more research into alternative energy sources.
In Canada, Bio-Terre Systems Inc. has developed an anaerobic digestion process that is ideal for colder climates. Their process operates successfully in the low temperature range of 5ºC to 25ºC. At this temperature, the specially adapted bacteria break down organic matter less quickly than at higher temperatures, but the process is more stable.
Bio-Terre Systems Inc. was founded in 1998 to commercialize the unique low-temperature process developed by researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Bio-Terre Systems Inc., 2007). They are currently working on two major projects in Quebec and one in Manitoba at Teulon’s Cook Feeders Farm. The system at Cook Feeders was built in 2004 and currently processes 18,000 hogs per year. Their system has a treatment capacity of 13,000 m3/year and the potential of generating 90kW of electricity (Bio-Terre Systems Inc., 2007).
The Government of Manitoba recently showed its support for this type of initiative by providing $300,000 to this and two other projects in Manitoba located in Grunthal and Carberry (Tuli, 2006). There is enormous potential for expanding the use of anaerobic digestion technology within agricultural industries and also for expanding to the treatment of municipal organic waste.