MADISON, Wisc. — Two educational webinars planned March 14 will examine finance issues and technology options for installing and maintaining anaerobic digester systems.
The webinars, which are free of charge, are part of the Renewable Energy Education Field Day series — educational programs to provide farmers, ranchers, landowners and community leaders with information useful in deciding whether to implement a renewable energy technology in their operation.
The webinars, each three hours in length, will address two critical issues in the decision-making process: financing installation and operation of a digester system, as well as the rate of return on the investment, and technology options — what they are and how they are used.
In a webinar called Financing an Anaerobic Digester System:, from 8:30-11:30 a.m. (CST), dairy farmers and community leaders will share their first-hand experiences financing, installing and maintaining digester systems.
They’ll also hear from commercial and private lenders with experience financing digester operations.
Topics will include return on investment, private funding, government/private partnership funding options, cost of construction, potential revenue generation streams, avoided environmental costs, tax incentives and cost of operation, including management and labor costs.
A second webinar, “Technical Aspects of Anaerobic Digester Systems,” will be presented from 1:30-4:30 p.m. (CST), examining digester technologies — psychrophilic (covered lagoon), mesophilic (plug flow and completely mixed), and thermophilic (completely mixed).
The webinars are a collaboration of Farm Foundation, NFP, USDA Rural Development, USDA Office of Energy Policy & New Uses, the AgStar Program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, and the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative of the University of Wisconsin.
Both webinars will originate from Rooms 325-326 of the Pyle Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. There is no charge to attend but registration is required. To register, visit the Farm Foundation, NFP website at http://www.farmfoundation.org/webcontent/Renewable-Energy-Education-Field-Days-Anaerobic-Digester-Webinars-1752.aspx?z=na&a=1752.
Register to view the webinars from your office or home computer, or register to be present at the Pyle Center.
“Government funding options” and “tax incentives”?? Wal-Mart and McDonalds pay for their waste disposal. Why then would taxpayers be forced to pay for waste treatment for dairy factory farms? Isn’t waste disposal supposed to be part of the cost of doing business? Plus, digesting manure doesn’t avoid the need to apply that
manure as fertilizer, since the manure still exists and has to go somewhere – it doesn’t magically disappear and turn into energy.