At a glance
This Feasibility/Pilot Study would evaluate a) Site Location b) Custom-Design Review c) Ongoing Maintenance requirements for… Read full summary
- Funding received
- 2017-2018
- Large
- Awarded
- $10,000
- Funding partners
-
- Services and Activities Fee (SAF)
This Feasibility/Pilot Study would evaluate a) Site Location b) Custom-Design Review c) Ongoing Maintenance requirements for building a 160-square foot anaerobic digester on the UW Seattle Campus. The anaerobic digester would utilize food waste to produce renewable energy (biogas) and compost. The biogas and compost could be used for research projects by professors/students, and the methane gas could be used to generate electricity or power water boilers on the UW campus. The food waste would be provided by the UW Husky Union Building (HUB).
Food waste is an urgent public health issue. In the U.S., approximately 31% of post-harvest food is wasted (i.e. thrown away or spoiled). This is approximately 133 billion pounds of food annually, costing approximately $161 billion (“USDA | OCE | U.S. Food Waste Challenge | FAQ’s,” n.d.). This is shocking and shameful, given national rates of food insecurity and poverty. In addition, food waste often rots in landfills, creating methane gas, which is nearly 4x as damaging to the ozone layer as CO2 emissions. We have to address food waste at the local, city, and national level. This project proposal involves building an anaerobic digester on the UW Seattle campus to utilize food waste to produce compost and renewable energy.
An anaerobic digester would have three main environmental impacts on the UW Seattle Campus:
- Carbon Emissions: the anaerobic digester would utilize approximately 135lbs of food waste per day, so less food waste would be hauled from the UW campus to Cedar Grove Composting Facility. Reducing the amount of food waste that is hauled to Cedar Grove would reduce carbon emissions from garbage/waste disposal trucks that drive from UW to Cedar Grove.
- Soil Health: an anaerobic digester would produce nutrient-rich compost that could be applied to the UW farm and Center for Urban Horticulture (and other locations on campus).
- Renewable Energy: an anaerobic digester would be a small-scale model of how to generate renewable energy from food waste. The food waste is broken down by microbes, which produce methane gas, and the methane gas can be used to power a generator for electricity.
This project is seeking CSF funding for a feasibility phase trial to test whether there is capacity to build a 160 square foot anaerobic digester on the UW Seattle Campus. The anaerobic digester costs ~$95,000 and would utilize food waste from the Husky Union Building (HUB) to create compost and Renewable Natural Gas. This feasibility study would finalize: 1) Site Location 2) Gas Usage 3) Compost Usage
- Site Location: the current proposed site for the anaerobic digester is adjacent to the Southwest doors of the HUB. Paul Zuchowski, HUB Associate Director, proposed this location because of: a) Proximity to the HUB kitchen (food waste source) b) High degree of visibility with many students passing through these doors c) Accessible electricity and water hookups. We considered other locations on campus, but none of those locations have all three of the above features of this proposed site near the HUB. The SW doors of the HUB is currently the best available option, but we need to finalize several details: a) Cost estimate of water/electricity hookup to HUB building b) Permission to clear plants/shrubs that are currently occupying this space.
- Gas Usage: The anaerobic digester uses microbes to break down food waste and produce Renewable Natural Gas (RNG), which is chemically equivalent to methane gas. We could use the RNG in many ways, and we need to finalize what we would do with the gas. The current options are: a) Power a small generator to charge batteries for the UW Mail Services electric bicycles. We are discussing this option with Douglas Stevens, Program Support Supervisor at UW Mail Services b) Compress the natural gas into small tanks that can be used at UW student/staff/faculty barbeques, or sold to food trucks on campus or at the U-District Farmer's Market c) Clean the natural gas and plug it into the UW natural gas pipelines. Currently, charging the electric bicycle batteries seems to be the best option, but we need to finalize the following details: a) Discuss feasibility of having a battery charging station at the HUB (i.e. is it too far away from Mail Services?) b) How would the batteries be stored/secured? c) What regulations/procedures need to be in place to ensure safety of gas storage/usage?
- Compost Usage: The anaerobic digester produces compost, which can be directly applied to plants. We are collaborating with Howard Nakase and Grounds Management to provide them with this compost free-of-charge. We need to finalize these details: a) How much compost would be used by Grounds Management (i.e. would there be surplus compost?) b) Would the UW Farm be able to use any compost? C) How would the compost be transported from the digester to Grounds Management/UW Farm?
Students, staff, and faculty involved
- Dr. Heidi Gough, PhD, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
- Dr. Sally Brown, PhD, School of Forest Resources
- Dr. Marilyn Ostergren, PhD, UW Renewable Energy Liaison
- JR Fulton, Housing & Food Services Capitol Planning/Sustainability Manager
- Aaron Flaster, BA, Research Coordinator, Department of Psychology
- Global Sustainability Initiative (RSO)
Aaron Flaster
Project lead
- aflaster@uw.edu
- Affiliation
- Staff
Caelan Wisont
Team member
- gsiuw@uw.edu
- Affiliation
- Student
- Affiliated groups
- Registered Student Organization (RSO)
Summary
This Feasibility/Pilot Study would evaluate a) Site Location b) Custom-Design Review c) Ongoing Maintenance requirements for building a 160-square foot anaerobic digester on the UW Seattle Campus. The anaerobic digester would utilize food waste to produce renewable energy (biogas) and compost. The biogas and compost could be used for research projects by professors/students, and the methane gas could be used to generate electricity or power water boilers on the UW campus. The food waste would be provided by the UW Husky Union Building (HUB).
Environmental impact
An anaerobic digester would have three main environmental impacts on the UW Seattle Campus:
- Carbon Emissions: the anaerobic digester would utilize approximately 135lbs of food waste per day, so less food waste would be hauled from the UW campus to Cedar Grove Composting Facility. Reducing the amount of food waste that is hauled to Cedar Grove would reduce carbon emissions from garbage/waste disposal trucks that drive from UW to Cedar Grove.
- Soil Health: an anaerobic digester would produce nutrient-rich compost that could be applied to the UW farm and Center for Urban Horticulture (and other locations on campus).
- Renewable Energy: an anaerobic digester would be a small-scale model of how to generate renewable energy from food waste. The food waste is broken down by microbes, which produce methane gas, and the methane gas can be used to power a motor for electricity, heat water boilers, and other uses.
Student leadership and involvement
Student interest and leadership is primarily coming from a UW Registered Student Organization (RSO), called Global Sustainability Initiative (GSI). The undergraduate members include: Caelan Wisont, Zhaoyi Fang, Yushan Tong, and Kyler Jobe. GSI focuses on promoting sustainability on a global scale, emphasizing household-scale anaerobic digestion projects to create methane gas for stoves. GSI grew out of SafeFlame LLC, which was started by a UW MBA graduate (Kevin Cussen), and received a CSF grant in 2015-2016. GSI also connects interested students to anaerobic digestion projects and gets students excited about working with anaerobic digestion, renewable energy, and public health.
Education, outreach, and behavior change
We will conduct education/outreach for this project by:
- Sustainability Studio (ENVIR 480): conduct a 15-20 minute presentation for the undergraduate students in this course at the beginning of each quarter, starting in Winter Quarter, 2018. ENVIR 480 focuses on sustainability, and a previous group of students from this course conducted a research project on anaerobic digestion. In Fall 2017, Aaron Flaster met with the instructor for ENVIR 480 and the instructor was open to having Aaron present to her students about the anaerobic digestion project.
- Global Sustainability Initiative (GSI): GSI will conduct outreach to UW undergraduate students to build their membership and raise awareness about the anaerobic digester project. GSI will conduct outreach using tabling events, Facebook posts, and flyers.
Feasibility, accountability, and accessibility
This is a Feasibility/Pilot Study proposal to determine whether it is realistic to move forward with a full project proposal in April 2018 to build an anaerobic digester on the UW Seattle Campus. This Feasibility Study will accomplish three goals:
- Site Location: conduct an extensive evaluation to find an appropriate site on the UW campus for the anaerobic digester. This evaluation will be a collaboration between the UW Anaerobic Digester Project Leadership Team, UW Grounds Management, UW Landscape Architects, UW Design Review Board, and Impact Bioenergy. Impact Bioenergy (http://impactbioenergy.com/) is a business located in Seattle, WA. Impact Bioenergy designs/builds anaerobic digesters to utilize food waste and produce renewable energy and compost. Impact Bioenergy currently operates 3 anaerobic digesters in the greater Seattle area (1. Fremont Brewing Company (Ballard facility) 2. Pleasant Beach Resort on Bainbridge Island 3. Laser Cutting Northwest/CleanTech Manufacturing Accelerator. Impact Bioenergy has also built 2 more anaerobic digestion systems that are owned and operated by those customers (4. Microsoft (Redmond Campus) 5. Crooked Shed Farm (Carnation, WA).
- Custom Design Review: if necessary, Impact Bioenergy will conduct a custom-design evaluation to tailor the anaerobic digester to the available site. If the available site does not require a custom-design anaerobic digester, then the funds in this Feasibility Study that are meant for Impact Bioenergy will be used towards the full proposal in April, 2018.
- Ongoing Maintenance: determine whether the Sustainability Coordinator staff position (part of Grounds Management) can be the position that maintains the anaerobic digester on an ongoing basis (i.e. bring food waste from HUB anaerobic digester and monitor anaerobic digester readings, such as pH, temperature, etc.). With the permission of Grounds Management, we will have the Sustainability Coordinator log how many hours it would take to bring ~135 lbs of food waste from the HUB to a potential site location, every day for 5 days.
Leadership team
Dr. Heidi Gough, PhD, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, hgough@uw.edu Dr. Sally Brown, PhD, School of Forest Resources, slb@u.washington.edu Dr. Marilyn Ostergren, PhD, UW Renewable Energy Liaison, ostergrn@uw.edu Aaron Flaster, BA, Research Coordinator, Department of Psychology, aflaster@uw.edu Global Sustainability Initiative (Registered Student Organization), gsiuw@uw.edu
Budget estimate
Total $10,000
- Impact Bioenergy: $9,900 (custom-design evaluation/full project review)
- Sustainability Coordinator: $100 (1 hr per day, 5 days, moving food waste from HUB to potential site)
Contact information
Aaron Flaster, B.A.
Research Coordinator, Department of Psychology, University of Washington
Work email: aflaster@uw.edu
Cell #: 206-616-7934
Request amount and budget
How the project will react to funding reductions
If the feasibility phase does not receive the full $10,000, we will still be able to complete the feasibility study. We would ask Facilities Services to provide a budget estimate free-of-charge, and we would have the Sustainability Coordinator volunteer their time to evaluate how much labor it requires to haul food waste from the HUB to the digester each day. However, we are planning to the apply for the Seattle Public Utilities: Waste-Free Communities Matching Grant, which requires at least a 50% match of funds before applying for the $2,000-$15,000 grant they offer. If we want to apply for the full $15,000, we need to have a 50% match, which would be $7,500. If CSF is not able to fund the full $10,000, we hope we can ask for $7,500 so we can apply for the maximum $15,000 SPU grant. Thank you for your time and consideration!
Plans for financial longevity
At present, we do not know how this project will be maintained in the long run. We know that too many student projects often fail because students graduate, funds run out, and people forget about past projects. We won’t let that happen with this project. That is precisely why we want to carry out this feasibility phase—to clarify and ensure that we have a clear plan for how to maintain this project in the long run.
To provide ongoing maintenance, we would need to secure funding and create a part-time staff position, or incorporate the ongoing maintenance into an existing UW staff position. We are currently discussing with Howard Nakase whether the UW Sustainability Coordinator position (within Grounds Management) could be responsible for maintaining the digester. We need to finalize: a) Whether this position has enough time to take on these additional responsibilities b) If there needs to be additional ongoing funding, and if so, where that funding will come from.
Problem statement
Food waste is an urgent public health issue. In the U.S., approximately 31% of post-harvest food is wasted (i.e. thrown away or spoiled). This is approximately 133 billion pounds of food annually, costing approximately $161 billion (“USDA | OCE | U.S. Food Waste Challenge | FAQ’s,” n.d.). This is shocking and shameful, given national rates of food insecurity and poverty. In addition, food waste often rots in landfills, creating methane gas, which is nearly 4x as damaging to the ozone layer as CO2 emissions. We have to address food waste at the local, city, and national level.
This anaerobic digester project provides a small-scale model of how to utilize food waste to produce renewable energy and compost. The anaerobic digester that we are proposing to install is pre-fabricated by a Seattle-based business called Impact Bioenergy (http://impactbioenergy.com/). The digester is approximately 160 square feet and can process ~135 pounds of pre-consumer food waste per day. The digester can store ~175 cubic feet of RNG, and when this gas powers a generator, it produces about 360,000 BTU of energy per day, with a 2.5-4kW energy output. This is enough to power a small generator, which can charge batteries for electric cars/bicycles. The gas can also be used directly in pipelines or tanks (if the gas is cleaned/compressed). Although this is a relatively small-scale model, it will show how university campuses and community businesses/organizations can utilize their food waste to produce RNG, which reduces methane emissions, carbon emissions, and pollution associated with hauling food waste to composting facilities/landfills. Other universities in the U.S. have installed anaerobic digesters, but we do not know of any other universities/colleges in the Pacific Northwest Region that have an anaerobic digester that serves as a model for how to utilize food waste.
Measure the impacts
To evaluate the digester’s effectiveness, we will measure:
Food waste
- Pounds of food waste diverted to digester from waste-stream (which usually goes to Cedar Grove composting facility),
- Type of food waste used (X % meat, X% vegetables, etc.)
Gas and electricity
- Cubic feet of RNG produced per week
- Amount of electricity generated per day/week
Compost
- Pounds of compost produced per week
Pollution
- Carbon emission reductions of not having to haul away X pounds of food waste
- Methane emission reductions of preventing food waste from rotting in landfill (for other facilities where food waste is not composted)
Costs
- Cost-savings of diverting waste (cost reductions of not hauling away food waste in garbage trucks)
- Cost-savings of producing compost (rather than purchasing from a 3rd party)
- Cost-savings of producing electricity/gas
Education and outreach goals
We will publicize our project in three ways:
- GSI: GSI will advertise this project to other RSOs, and will publicize this digester project during their tabling events. GSI is the undergraduate student group that is helping to push this project forward, and their current network with other RSOs will help raise awareness about our project on campus.
- Signage: If the digester is built, we will create signage on/around the digester with educational information about anaerobic digestion. For instance, the signage will explain how anaerobic digestion works, how the gas/compost is being used, statistics/scale of the current project, how the project could be scaled up, other digester projects currently happening in Seattle, etc. These signs would be located on the outside of the digester and available for anyone to read.
- Undergraduate/Graduate Courses: The faculty members collaborating on this project (Dr. Heidi Gough, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering; Dr. Sally Brown, School of Forest Resources) will encourage their undergraduate and graduate students to conduct research projects on the anaerobic digester. Dr. Gough is primarily interested in the gas production and how changing the inputs (types of food waste) affects the composition of the gas. Dr. Brown is interested in soil science and how the type of food waste affects the chemical makeup of the compost. Additionally, we will do a quarterly presentation for the Sustainability Studio (ENVIR 480) course. This would be a 15-20 minute presentation for the undergraduate students in this course at the beginning of each quarter. ENVIR 480 focuses on sustainability, and a previous group of students from this course conducted a research project on anaerobic digestion. In Fall 2017, Aaron Flaster met with the instructor for ENVIR 480 and the instructor was open to having Aaron present to her students about the anaerobic digester project.
Student involvement
This project would involve 1 part-time staff position, and 15-20 student volunteer positions. The part-time paid staff would be responsible for maintaining the digester (e.g. monitoring temperature, monitoring pH, monitoring odor control, bringing food waste to the digester 1x per day, etc.). The volunteer positions would be undergraduate/graduate students that want to conduct research projects on any aspect of the digester (e.g. gas composition, compost, engineering, business, etc.). These volunteers would be responsible for carrying out research their own papers/projects that are supervised by a UW faculty member. The volunteers could also be trained to lead tours of the digester for other UW students.
Student involvement and interest in this project would also come from a UW Registered Student Organization (RSO), called Global Sustainability Initiative (GSI). The undergraduate members include: Caelan Wisont, Zhaoyi Fang, Yushan Tong, and Kyler Jobe. GSI focuses on promoting sustainability on a global scale, emphasizing household-scale anaerobic digestion projects to create methane gas for stoves. GSI grew out of SafeFlame LLC, which was started by a UW MBA graduate (Kevin Cussen), and received a CSF grant in 2015-2016. GSI also connects interested students to anaerobic digestion projects and gets students excited about working with anaerobic digestion, renewable energy, and public health.