Maine's first dairy digester is up and running in Clinton, capturing the methane gas that's normally released into the atmosphere from manure.
"The manure goes into the facility," said Angus King, president of Peaks Renewables under Summit Utilities which operates the plant. "It then gets processed for 20 to 25 days. The gas gets extracted and then what's left is a liquid that goes back to the farms. And the farms are able to use that to fertilize their fields just they do using manure today."
King says the process begins with the collection of manure from local participating farms that's produced by some 5,000 cows. The methane biogas is then cleaned, and added to Summit's system. Company officials say its functionally identical to traditional natural gas and can be used for heating, cooking and other purposes. Peaks estimates the project's environmental impact will be equivalent to taking 6,500 cars off the road for every year it's in operation.
