The Lethbridge Herald reported in mid-August that groundbreaking had taken place on southern Alberta’s first biogas plant, at Lethbridge’s northside Rave Industrial Park.
ECB Enviro North America Inc. and St. Catharines, Ont.-based PlanEt Biogas Solutions Inc., have partnered to build the $30 million facility, which is to take close to turn 160,000 tonnes of liquid organic waste from animal and vegetable waste from farmers, industrial food plants and restaurants in the area into useful heat and 2.85 megawatts of power. Production is to begin in January 2013.
ECB President Thane Hurlburt said the plant, when it starts production in January 2013, will use an Alberta-developed thermal hydrolysis technology that’s “never been done anywhere in the world,” to get rid of any infectious diseases present in the animal waste so the final product can be safely used for fertilizer.