Decades of digester development

By Diane Mettler

RCM has taken its technology from a simple idea to a leader in the industry
CM turns 30 years old this year, making it one of the most established digester manufactures in the field. President and agricultural engineer Mark Moser recalls those early days, when it was just two guys and a vision. Not much was known about digesters in the commercial sense, he says. Thered been laboratory work and there were municipal digesters, but ag digesters just werent available. So, I got out of Cornell (University) and convinced them this would be a cool idea. Mark made his case and was soon building digesters for industry leaders 22

willing to work with the new technology. As expected the first couple of digesters had some bugs, but the third one was pretty good, says Mark. In fact, it was good enough that its still running today. Today RCM has more than 85 digesters in operation on dairy and hog farms. And, being one of the original companies in the market, RCM can also lay claim to the oldest digester continuously running. In its 30 years of operation its been running almost flawlessly. The engine has been rebuilt five times, but it was only down once 17 years ago to be cleaned. Challenges As the industry matured, the ongoing challenge was to produce a better, more reliable digester. In the early days, if you made gas 90 percent of the time and electricity 80 percent of the time, you were considered good, says Mark. Today, most of our digesters produce electricity 92 to 95 percent of the time. Its been years and years of incremental upgrades. We would see a need for an improvement and make it.

One of the focuses was creating a digester that worked well with minimal supervision, because thats what farmers need. Back in the 80s and into the 90s, everything was manual operation. With todays computer technology, this is a great time for automatic operation. Not that it can run itself, but it has gotten to the point where if there is a problem, the digester will call you and you can get out your iPhone and see how the engine is running. EPA comes calling There have been plenty of highlights for the company over the years. For Mark personally, it was in the mid-90s when he was selected as the senior technical advisor of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys agSTAR Program. RCM is celebrating 30 years in business in 2012. The California-based business has anaerobic digester installations around the world, including this digester at Patterson Dairy Farms in Auburn, N.Y. Contributed photo

Manure Manager July/August 2012

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RCM tends to install anaerobic digesters in areas where there are high electricty prices. Thats why RCM has a strong presence in New York, Pennsylvania and some New England states, for example, on Chaput Farms in Vermont. Contributed photo At the time, 80 percent of the digesters failed and 20 percent of them worked and it just happened that the 20 percent were ours. That led to Marks invitation and his involvement in the program over the next five years. We were able to create an education program and develop demonstration digesters that allowed people to believe that digesters were reliable, he says. The program was a success. Through it more successful digesters were introduced, more companies entered the market building reliable digesters, and the industry grew. Digester dollars RCM has digesters operating worldwide, including Japan, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico. In fact, RCM built the largest hog digester in the world in Chile that handles 238,000 pigs and has been running since 2003. The reason farmers turn to digesters is the simple fact that it makes them money, says Mark. Energy produced is used to run the hog or dairy farm and the excess can be sold and put on the grid. A dairy with 1,000 cows could save/earn a $100,000 in electricity. Were working in mostly states with high electric costs, because thats the easiest cash value for an owner to realize. For that reason RCM does a lot of business in states like New York, Vermont and Pennsylvania. 24 Many benefits of digesters Although creating power is the primary reason to purchase a digester there are numerous benefits once one has been installed. Bedding Digester solids can be used as bedding. A dairy with 1,000 cows could make up to $50,000 a year in bedding. Somatic cell count Two years ago in Pennsylvania, RCM conducted a study of top dairymen. All reduced their somatic cell count after switching to digester and solids bedding, and a lower cell count results in better prices for milk. Odor control Odor is eliminated through the digestion process. In New York, in order to get a dairy built near a town, the owners decided to put in a digester to mitigate the animosity from a nearby neighborhood, says Mark. We took a busload of residents to another of our digesters that was about 30 miles away. As they stood beside it, we asked, If youre 500 feet away from this, is this going to be a problem for you? The neighborhood opposition was satisfied and that dairy got built. Manure spreadability Manure thats been through a digester is thinner and doesnt clog machinery as much. And because of the change in the manures characteristics after digestion, you can haul it shorter distances because you dont have to avoid the neighbors, says Mark. Heat In colder areas digesters can offset a good amount of building heating. One farmer was able to heat his home because the digester was nearby. We provide heat and hot water at most all of our dairy installations. We also have people using the waste heat to dry corn and pasteurize milk, says Mark. Receiving food waste By receiving food waste from food processors, farmers get more energy from their digester, tipping fees from the processors, and also keep waste from landfills. Designing the digester Today, RCM employs about 14 people. Its headquartered in Oakland, Calif., and has offices in Mifflintown, Penn., and near Clymer, New York. They partner with local engineers and equipment suppliers to take the products to the farmers. Because each farm is different, RCM believes each digester should be tailored for the operation. Our goal is to integrate the system so it works with the farm versus being an appendage says Mark. We work to design it into the farm and make it easy to operate. Thats the key to success easy operation. An operator doesnt want to walk an extra 100 yards just to look at an engine. Of course some farms offer more design challenges than others. For example, if manure is headed from the barns in different directions, its

Manure Manager July/August 2012

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with pigs, about 10,000 finish hogs is the sweet spot. The next 10 years As RCM turns 30, its hard not to look ahead and wonder where it will be when it turns 40 in 2022. Ideally, Mark would like to see a couple hundred more digesters out there in the U.S. and abroad. Over the past three decades, RCW has learned that sales depend not only on the economy, but on the country too. Sometimes the economy isnt so good in the U.S., but its great somewhere else. For that reason, we have lot of international work, but the majority of our work is still here in the U.S. At the end of the day though, Mark says for him it all comes down to installing the right technology for the farmers. We build four different types of digesters depending on what the owner needs. We look at what works for them, and the best economics. We can build a complete mix, a plug flow, and even covered lagoons. We can do that because its our own technology that we developed. We understand it and know how to apply it. He doesnt believe hell ever get tired of watching the day it all comes together at the farm. Its always a big day. Weve been working on construction for a year and then suddenly shazam its making gas. Thats when they believe.

RCM can build four different styles of digester and match the technology to the operators needs. Contributed photo a more complex design than if the manure is already being collected in one spot. Topography can also create unique challenges. But designing the right digester also requires looking and planning ahead installing a system that will work for the farm 30 years from now. The majority of our clients are family farms in the U.S., says Mark. They are people who are going to stay in business, who believe in farming as a lifestyle not just to subsist, but to prosper. The clients are also the larger farmers. With this kind of technology there is no smaller size says Mark. It starts to make sense at 400 cows. The sweet spot in dairies is about 1,000 cows. Thats where all the equipment is optimized. Bigger than that, it gets a little better, but from 400 to 1,000 the return on investment rapidly improves. And

National dairy event coming to Canada February 2013

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he Canadian Dairy XPO (CDX), a new largescale dairy event and a first for Canada, will mix dairy agribusiness, breed associations, and the research community under one huge roof with dairy producers and global industry stakeholders. In addition to hundreds of dairy product and service providers in the trade show halls, the event will feature a world-class speaker program, a live milking robot showdown, a working cow showcase, and an evening networking social. All will take place in the new Stratford Rotary Complex located in Stratford, Ont. Perth and surrounding counties make up one of the most important dairy regions in Canada. Within an hours drive of Stratford there are almost 3,000 medium- to large-scale dairy operations and that number is growing.

Major industry partners have already signed on with CDX. EastGen, a partner in the Semex Global Alliance, is one of several genetic companies that will showcase their best dairy daughters from across Canada live at CDX. Other founding partners that have made three-year commitments to the project include Jaylor, Grand Valley Fortifiers and POST Farm Structures. In addition, CDX is in the process of assembling a steering committee comprising progressive producers and CDX founding partners. This committee will give CDX management input and direction on all facets to ensure continuous improvement and national growth of the project. Get updates at www.dairyxpo.ca as momentum builds for the inaugural Canadian Dairy XPO, Feb. 6 and 7, 2013.

Manure Manager July/August 2012

Reprinted with permission from Manure Manager Magazine