San Jose, Calif.-San Jose has taken the first step toward becoming the location of the first organics-to-energy biogas facility in the U.S. that would produce electricity to operate the city’s water treatment facility or for other uses, along with a high-quality fertilizer. The city council already has authorized a memorandum of understanding with a number of participants, including Zanker Road Biogas, which would develop and operate the facility, capable of processing up to 150,000 tons of organic waste per year that normally goes to a landfill. “This project not only demonstrates San Jose’s leadership in the production of renewable energy, but will help us meet the economic development, zero waste and energy goals of our city’s Green Vision,” said San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed. The technology, which is common in Europe, uses a process known as dry anaerobic fermentation to generate renewable biogas and high-quality fertilizer. The proposed project would be developed in three phases, with each designed to increase capacity by 50,000 tons per year of organic materials – a combination of primarily food waste and the organic portion of the municipal solid waste stream – and produce two products: a renewable biogas containing methane, and high-quality fertilizer. In contrast to the wet process in use in all of the existing anaerobic digestion systems in the U.S., this biogas system would use the dry fermentation technology specifically designed to process the relatively dry organic portion of the municipal solid waste stream, which is difficult to recycle without extensive pre-processing, and currently ends up in a landfill.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain