06/02/06 Third Idaho digester to be built soon

An Eagle company has teamed up with a Canyon County dairyman to build an anaerobic digester where they will treat cow manure and produce electricity in the process. Hyperion Energy's Sot Chimonas says they'll be able to produce up to three megawatts of electricity in the digester which will balance the chemistry of the dairy manure. CHIMONAS "We add food waste amendments to it, in this case fats and oils from the restaurant trade, typically livestock food but we're putting it into the digester essentially to improve its performance and produce more biogas and therefore more electricity." Bernie Teunisson's dairy south of Caldwell is in partnership with Chimonas and they hope to break ground within a couple of months on the multi-million dollar digester. CHIMONAS "Methane gas is a pretty detrimental ozone depleting gas that we eliminate because we capture all of it under a completely sealed environment and burn it. We also improve the composting operation dramatically on the dairy because we have a predigested compost rather than raw manure compost." More about the digesters in Monday's report. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott