s→Environment
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/17/business/fi-onions-fuel17
Onions produce tears and energy at an Oxnard plant
ENERGY
A farming company uses juice from the vegetable to run a fuel cell. It's
one of a growing number of businesses that use their waste to produce
electricity.
July 17, 2009|Tiffany Hsu
After more than 20 years farming onions, Steve Gill still breaks out in
tears at his processing facility.
Only now he's crying all the way to the bank.
He recently began using juice from his pungent crop to create energy to
run his refrigerators and lighting. That's slicing $700,000 annually off
the electric bill at his 14-acre plant in Oxnard. He's also saving
$400,000 a year on disposal costs. And he has secured more than $3
million in government and power company incentives to do it.
Gill figures the $9.5-million system will pay for itself in less than six
years while eliminating up to 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent
emissions a year.
"It's a great sustainability story, but it was first a business
decision to solve a waste problem," said Gill, 59, who co-owns the
company with his brother David. "But in doing so, we solved a lot of
environmental problems too."
Gills Onions is one of a small but growing cadre of U.S. companies
generating their own electricity on site with waste from their production
processes. In addition to plant material, firms are using a variety of
feedstocks, including animal manure, vegetable oil, whey -- even
beer.
The massive upfront costs limit the appeal of these so-called closed-loop
systems. But volatile energy prices and the rising cost of waste disposal
are compelling more firms to take a look.
Farmers and processors in California's $37-billion agricultural industry
in particular are looking for ways to save money and reduce their
environmental footprint, said Sonia Salas, science and technology manager
for the Western Growers Assn.
"Many growers want technology that helps them handle waste,"
she said. "This is a concept that other operations can definitely
use."
The system at Gills Onions, which will be unveiled to the public today,
converts methane from fermented onion juice into energy burned in two
on-site fuel cells.
The company has farms throughout California that send onions year-round
to the Oxnard plant, where they are skinned, diced, sliced or packaged
whole in a numbingly frigid facility by 400 employees. The vegetables are
then shipped all over the country to wholesalers and retailers such as
Ralphs.
Machines slice off about 40% of each onion. That leaves 150 tons of waste
a day. For years, the Gills spread these leavings as fertilizer over
their fields or sold them as cattle feed. But the refuse was expensive to
handle, and it posed a hazard to the atmosphere and groundwater.
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG -
www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.819 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2879 - Release Date: 05/16/10
23:26:00
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
an educational
non-profit since 2000
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie@sbpermaculture.org
www.sbpermaculture.org
"We are like trees,
we must create new leaves, in new directions, in order to grow." -
Anonymous