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Construction set to begin on 'giant cow's stomach' near Monroe

By Krista J. Kapralos, Herald Writer

MONROE -- Construction on what one local farmer calls "a giant cow's stomach" is expected to begin before month's end.

Qualco Energy, a partnership between local farmers, the Tulalip Tribes and Northwest Chinook Recovery, plans to burn methane gas that seeps from decomposing cow manure and turn it into electricity.

"The cow itself is very efficient," said Dale Reiner, a cattle farmer who is leading the effort. "Our digester will work just like a cow's stomach to produce methane gas."

The plant will be built on a 277-acre plot near Monroe that was once a prison farm. It will be the state's first methane energy plant that will sell electricity to a public utility, Reiner said. There are two other methane gas plants in the state, one in Lynden and one near Sunnyside, but both are owned and used by private farmers, he said.

At the plant, a bio-digester, the device Reiner likens to a cow's stomach, will convert manure from dairy farms in Tualco Valley, just south of Monroe, into methane gas. When burned, the gas will become electricity, and will be sold to the Snohomish County PUD.

At full capacity, the plant will produce 600 kilowatts of electricity from one bio-digester. That's enough to power about 500 homes, said Neil Neroutsos, a PUD spokesman.

Later, Qualco Energy is likely to add a second bio-digester, Reiner said.

Qualco Energy and the PUD are still hammering out the details of their contract, Neroutsos said.

The bio-digester's methane gas will power just one six-hundredth of the PUD's 315,000 commercial and residential customers. It will also cost about twice as much as the hydropower the PUD buys from the Bonneville Power Administration.

PUD customers are asking for more renewable energy sources, Neroutsos said.

There's another reason the PUD is buying more expensive power: legislation passed in 2006 requires the utility to source 3 percent of its power portfolio through a specific list of renewable energy types. Hydropower is not on that list, but methane gas is.

About 2 percent of the PUD's power portfolio currently meets the standards set forth in the legislation. Still, Qualco Energy will be among the utility's smaller power providers. The Hampton Mill, which produces energy from wood waste in Darrington, provides about three times the energy that Qualco Energy will produce.

Qualco Energy's plant will cost $3.2 million to build, Reiner said. The federal Department of Agriculture has provided a grant of a half million dollars, but the rest of the funding is through loans. Three dairy farmers have signed contracts with Qualco Energy to provide dung from about 1,600 cows.

More farmers will likely sign on to the project once the bio-digester is built, Reiner said.

Reiner raises Black Angus cattle that live on a range. Those cows won't be involved in the project.

"The only way I could collect it is if I had diapers on them," Reiner said. "And that's not going to happen."

Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.