Latest news with #anaerobicdigester
BBC News
06-08-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Poo power introduced to Wiltshire College's teaching farm
A college farm has invested £275,000 in technology to turn poo into power for its robotic anaerobic digester at Home Farm, on Wiltshire College and University Centre's Lackham campus, takes five tonnes of slurry a day from the dairy and converts it into electricity and conjunction with around 100 cows, it will be able to provide half of the energy needed to run and heat the robotic dairy, as well as reduce its carbon manager Philip Steans said the payback period will be four to eight years - "after that, it's all free". 'They stand up, they poo' The cows in the robotic dairy area know when they need to be milked and walk themselves into the automated milking is so high-tech that robots travel around the floor, sweeping up all the slurry."They [the cows] produce a lot of poo. Every time they stand up, they poo. It gets scraped all day long into channels," explained Mr Steans. It is a smelly business, but he said the new digester takes some of the odour away. The system, which involves heavily adapted shipping containers, has been installed by Bath firm BioFactory and uses microorganisms to convert the waste into methane, which is then used to make the power."The digester is heated up to a temperature of over 40 degrees, and it works like a cow's stomach. If you pump it in too quickly, it dies. The process is slow build-up." Mr Steans said. 'Great investment' He said it has an added benefit of making the slurry better for muck spreading, as a lot of harmful bacteria is removed while retaining the slurry free and a "relatively small" payback time, he sees this as a "great investment"."I've been canvassing at the college for years to invest in this," he added. The digester is also helping the college farm's sustainability, something that Mr Steans said now has to be a "major part" of teaching and farming."Most farmers now will assess the carbon footprint of their farm, then aim to reduce it with a huge amount of different methods. There's a lot of technical things we need to do," he said. On Thursday, the BBC's Farmwatch project will be hearing more from farmers across the country, online and on local radio.
BBC News
10-02-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Rowton chicken farm plan hits hurdle over drainage query
A plan to spend £3.5m to develop a 180,000-bird chicken farm has run into site at Barnes Farm in Rowton, near Waters Upton north of Telford, has an anaerobic digester that could be used to turn nearly 2,000 tonnes of chicken manure into gas for the National S V Taylor & Partners, the farming company that runs the site, has been asked to explain how it would stop water getting into the River Tern from the & Wrekin Council's drainage experts said they needed proof of how dirty water would be dealt with in order to remove their objections. They have asked the company for updated documents that include a "drawing showing the full discharge route to the River Tern". The farming business covers 950 acres and is currently operated as a mixed dairy and arable proposal involves building four poultry houses and associated infrastructure such as feed bins and dirty water tanks. Each poultry house would accommodate 45,000 birds, with a total site capacity of 180, farm also has a 5MW anaerobic digester that supplies gas to the National Grid, and the proposal includes processing an estimated 1,984 tonnes of chicken manure through this agent Ian Pick, of the consultancy Harrison Pick, has submitted documents to the council stating that the farm business wants to further Pick said this decision "stemmed from the financial volatility of the dairy and arable sectors".The plan is open for public comments on the council's website. This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations. Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
