Green Options

Dairy farm anaerobic lagoons without covers

The first large scale biogas plant linked to a beef feedlot, could make a more significant contribution to renewable energy in South Africa than the planned 3.8 MW of electricity, by advancing the technology in South Africa.

The Business

Independent power producer (IPP) Lesedi Biogas Project (LBP) is planning to build one of the world’s largest open-air feedlot manure-to-power plants, in Heidelberg, near Johannesburg, South Africa. Such plants use the anaerobic fermentation (bacterial fermentation of organic waste, with little or no oxygen present) to produce a methane rich gas which can be used to produce electricity or burn for heat.

The plant will be situated at the Karan Beef feedlot, which will supply the manure from its feedlot to the LBP. This would initially amount to 110,000 tons per year of manure, which would allow the production of 3,8 MW of base-load power reaching 6,2 MW of peak power.

Like it or not, “green” is a relative term. If you purchase a truck that gets 18 miles per gallon, is that good or bad for the environment? If you were driving a truck that got 13 miles to the gallon, it’s good. The same applies to many marketing technologies.

It’s easy to look past traditional offset and gravitate to digital and electronic technologies because of the perception that they are greener. But the fact is, traditional offset is still a necessary component of a successful marketing program. Fortunately, as I’ve written here before, offset technologies are getting greener and marketers don’t need to feel guilty about using them.

For example, Heidelberg is currently doing the media rounds announcing that its Speedmaster XL 105 offset press (pictured above) consumes between 10–20% less energy than comparable systems. Although energy costs only account for between 2-3% of the production costs of a print job, every little bit helps.

According to Heidelberg,