Anaerobic Digestion at Rutgers
Like 0 Dislike 0 Published on 7 Dec 2011
Rutgers produces 30-50 tons of food waste daily. Rutgers currently pays a pig farmer $120,000 anually to pick up and haul away this food waste. This is not the optimal method of dealing with waste as it wastes fossil feuls. Anaerobic digestion is a much better method as it produces useful byproducts and not nearly as much pollution. This process produces liquid fertilizer which provides a much safer alternative to synthetic fertilizers used by some farmers, which can cause eutrophication of bodies of water. More importantly, anaerobic digestion produces methane gas. This gas can be used to heat buildings and generate electricity, providing a renewable energy source for the university. This natural gas can be used to produce 2.37 MkWh of electricity for the university anually, representing about $308,000 in savings. Given the 2 million dollar investment that this project takes, the initial investment can be paid off in just 5 years due to the electricity produced and the fact that the university will no longer have to pay the pig farmer. This is a small price to pay for a process that will pay for itself in such a short amount of time and which will make the university more environmentally friendly. This petition is to gain support for implementation of this system at Rutgers.
http://www.change.org/petitions/rutgers-the-state-university-of-new-jersey-to..