Angus King III, president and CEO of Peaks Renewables, stands at a podium Wednesday as he tells a crowd at Flood Brothers Farm in Clinton about the installation at the farm of Maine’s first anaerobic dairy digester, which is to produce natural gas from manure. Construction of the digester, shown in the background, is continuing, with concrete scheduled to be poured in the coming days. Peaks Renewables is a division of Colorado-based Summit Utilities. King is a son of U.S. Sen. Angus S. King Jr., I-Maine, and served as assistant to the chief of staff in the administration of President Bill Clinton. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

CLINTON — In a first for Maine, a division of Colorado-based Summit Utilities is building an anaerobic dairy digester at a cost of at least $20 million that is to use manure from in-state farms to produce natural gas.

Several state and local officials gathered Wednesday to mark ongoing construction of the digester at Flood Brothers Farm in Clinton, which is often called the dairy capital of Maine.

“We’re taking a bad thing, emissions, and we’re turning it into a good thing, energy,” said Angus King III, president and CEO of Peaks Renewables, the Summit-affiliated company spearheading the effort. “The cows get to keep doing the magic that they do, turning grass into the milk that we all love, and now they’ve added a second trick to their repertoire.”

The digester is expected to be completed early next year, according to Ryan Morris, the construction manager.

A Holstein cow peaks out of a barn Wednesday at Flood Brothers Farm in Clinton. An anaerobic dairy digester is being built at the farm that is to produce natural gas from manure. The digester will be the first of its kind in Maine. Several dairy farms in the region are expected to provide the manure to feed the digester for the production of renewable natural gas. It is expected to be operational early next year. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

Once the digester is operational, Peaks is to collect cow manure from dairy farms in Maine and bring it to the Clinton farm, where it is to be heated and decomposed, creating biogas. The gas is then cleaned to reach pipeline quality, before moving into the existing pipe system in the area.

“We’re using existing infrastructure, the pipes that we already have in the ground, to remove those emissions,” King said. “I feel like that’s a very Maine thing to do. Taking something that you already have, the pipes, and taking something that nobody wants — emissions — and putting both of them to better use.”

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King is a son of U.S. Sen. Angus S. King Jr., I-Maine, and served as assistant to the chief of staff in the administration of President Bill Clinton.

The digester takes the methane, a potent greenhouse gas, that cow manure naturally releases and turns it into biomethane, or renewable natural gas. The digester reduces methane emissions by capturing the gas and turning it into an energy source.

Celia Grierson, 3, carries a snack from a table of refreshments Wednesday before joining her father, Ian, at Flood Brothers Farm in Clinton. An anaerobic dairy digester is being built at the farm that is to produce renewable natural gas from manure. The digester will be the first of its kind in Maine. Celia is wearing a costume patterned after a cow. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

A similar project began several years ago in the Penobscot County town of Exeter, although that digester uses manure and food waste to create electricity, which is then sold to the power grid.

Peaks estimates the Clinton digester will divert the equivalent of 28,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, about the same as taking 6,500 cars off the road for each year the digester runs.

Farms would not pay to have manure taken away, Morris said, and the digester would use what is left of the manure to create animal bedding, while the remaining liquid can be used as fertilizer. The bedding and fertilizer would go back to participating farms.

The digester is expected to have plenty of space for the manure. It is to hold about 4 million gallons of manure at once, and is expected to digest 175,000 gallons a day, according to Morris.

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Peaks has partnered with several farms in the state, including Flood Brothers Farm, Gold Top Farm in Knox, Somerset Farm in Pittsfield, Wright Place Farm in Clinton, Taylor Dairy Farm in St. Albans and Heifer Haven Farm, also in Clinton.

The gas itself is to be purchased by a Peaks-affiliated company, Summit Natural Gas of Maine, and be used to provide gas to its customers in the state.

Workers prepare Wednesday for concrete to be poured as part of construction of an anaerobic dairy digester that will produce natural gas from manure. The digester is being built at Flood Brothers Farm in Clinton and is to be the first of its kind in Maine. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

The project is expected to generate 130,000 MMBtu of gas a year, about 45% of Summit’s residential demand in Maine. MMBtu stands for Metric Million British Thermal Unit, which is traditionally used to measure heat content or energy value.

It is difficult to predict the final cost of the project, Morris said, but he estimated it could be $25 million. Peaks has received a few grants to assist with the project, including one from Efficiency Maine and another from the Maine Technology Institute of Brunswick.

Numerous supporters of the project spoke at the event Wednesday, including Jeffrey Towne, chair of the Clinton Board of Selectmen; Dan Burgess, director of Gov. Janet Mills’ Energy Office; and U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-2nd District.

Jenni Tilton-Flood, part of the family that owns Flood Brothers Farm, said when people think about agriculture and dairy farms, they often consider them a thing of the past. But that is not the case.

“Today, we are here as proof that our dairy farming community is much more than a heritage. We are part of the future,” she said. “Not only are we part of the future. Our dairy farm families are helping to create and fortify a future that is resilient and able to meet the challenges of climate head-on.”

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