Company in Alberta to turn cattle manure into natural gas, bury CO2

Manure from thousands of southern Alberta cattle will be used to supply renewable natural gas, while at the same time harmful carbon dioxide emissions will be buried, in a first-of-its-kind project.

Taurus Canada Renewable Natural Gas Corp.’s plan to build an integrated anaerobic digestion and carbon sequestration facility near Lethbridge was unveiled Thursday, boosted by millions of dollars in grants from the Alberta and federal governments.

Once its Central Farms facility is built, Taurus will transform 130,000 tonnes of manure sourced from nearby cattle feedlots into 360,000 gigajoules of natural gas per year — enough energy to power about 4,000 homes, or the entirety of the nearby Town of Coaldale.

The small-scale energy project was among six initiatives revealed Thursday that received a combined $28 million from Emissions Reduction Alberta's annual Industrial Transformation Challenge.

Taurus acquired a $10-million grant from Alberta and got $3.4 million through the federal government’s Low Carbon Economy Fund, while using its own equity and loans to cover the $85-million cost for the plant.

Alberta’s newly-minted environment minister Grant Hunter, who is also the local MLA, said his United Conservative government wants to support domestic innovators.

“All of this is good for the energy sector. All of this is good for Alberta, the economy and the environment,” Hunter said from outside Coaldale.

Taurus detailed a multi-step process that will be used to create natural gas.

Livestock manure will be collected from four feedlots and transported to a facility, where it will be stored inside to contain the smell.

The waste is then fed into a pre-treatment system, and diluted with processed water to create a slurry and to remove any rocks or small stones.

Next, in a process known as anaerobic digestion, the slurry is pumped into fully enclosed tanks and maintained at 40 C in an oxygen-free environment for up to a month.

Natural microbiological processes break down the manure, producing both biogas and nutrient-rich digestate.

The CO2 will be injected into a 1.5-kilometre deep well for permanent storage.

"You need to have the right geological formations beneath you to do that," said Taurus executive Phillip Abrary. "The geological formations in Alberta are ideally suited for those types of activities."