My pig dung energy plan is hotting up

PLANS have been lodged for a £1.5 million project to turn pig dung into green energy at a Lothians farm.

Landowner Jamie Wyllie plans to build the "anaerobic digester" to generate sufficient power from pig slurry to run his East Lothian farm. Any surplus energy produced by the scheme could be sold to the National Grid.

If planners give it the green light, it could even be used to provide heat to homes in a neighbouring village.

Mr Wyllie, a director of Ruchlaw Produce in Dunbar, submitted his application to planners last week having learned about generating electricity from waste while at Reading University and securing funding of 568,000 from the Scottish Government under the Rural Properties grant scheme.

Holyrood politicians hope the Dunbar concept could be a forerunner for future projects to transform animal waste into green energy as part of plans to tackle global warming.

It is unlikely the 137-hectare farm will struggle for fuel, with about 3200 breeding sows producing 70,000 pigs a year it is one of the biggest pig units in the country.

Methane and carbon dioxide will be created from the pig slurry fed into the digester. The digester works by pouring the waste into an airtight unit containing bacteria, which partly breaks it down into methane gas.

The methane is then pumped into a "biogas" plant, where it is burned to generate electricity and warm up water for heating systems. The residue is a powerful fertiliser which can be spread on land as pig slurry is now. One key benefit of the new process, particularly for neighbours, is that the smell is reduced.

The process produces 800kg of fertiliser and 200kg of biogas for every tonne of waste.

As well as pig muck, it is hoped that approximately 2000 tonnes of vegetable waste will be gathered by the local council and vegetable producers to be converted to energy at the Dunbar farm, reducing the waste going to landfill.

Carbon neutral body Sustaining Dunbar has been in talks with the farm owner over harnessing some of the excess heat expended at the facility to create a "district heating scheme" for the village of Stenton.

Philip Revell, project co-ordinator for Sustaining Dunbar, said the concept of energy-from-waste production on his doorstep was "quite exciting".

"In the short term I would support it as a way of making use of a resource that's there."