Sioux Center, Iowa — Cattle manure from local dairy farms will be run through digesters to generate natural gas that will run through a pipeline to Sioux Center.
Aaron Maassen owns one of the three dairy farms involved in the project. He says it will not only expand the town’s capacity for natural gas, it will also capture methane emissions from livestock waste.
Maassen says the greenhouse gas emissions eliminated will be equivalent to around 8,800 cars. Sioux Center utilities assistant manager Adam Fedders says the community needs more natural gas capacity.
Fedders says the utility will pay the upfront costs for installing the two-way pipeline but will recoup those costs from West Branch RNG, the company formed by the dairy farms. The farm digesters are expected to bring in around 350 MMBTUs a day, or around a third of the natural gas typically used in Sioux Center on a summer day. Winter usage is, of course, much higher. Construction on the pipeline is expected to begin as early as April.
(Kendall Crawford, Iowa Public Radio)
Check out our previous coverage of this story:
https://kiwaradio.com/local-news/could-cow-manure-provide-some-of-sioux-centers-natural-gas/
