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The Zanker Biogas Project in San Jose
The City of San Jose, the capital of the Silicon Valley, will take a step closer to becoming 100% energy independent by building the first organics-to-energy biogas facility in the U.S. This technology has already been proven successful in Europe.
The biogas facility, Zanker Road Biogas, to be built on a 40-acre site near the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plan, will convert up to 150,000 tons of organic waste per year to process and will produce energy that would otherwise have been destined for a landfill.
The Zanker Road project will be funded via a partnership of two companies: GreenWaste, a privately owned solid waste and recycling company, and Harvest Power, Inc., which provides industry leading technology and project development capability to harness the renewable energy in organic waste. The latter is funded in part by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
“Creating green jobs that can’t be outsourced overseas is essential to rebuilding our local and state economy. Through projects like this, San Jose is becoming the world center for clean tech innovation,” said San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed.
San Jose's Zanker BioGas, will employ approximately 30-40 workers during its development phase, and is expected to create 50-60 direct and supporting jobs when fully operational. Once built, the facility will also stimulate the economy through innovation and technology.
Michelle Young, Organics Manager for City of San Jose Environmental Services Department, explains the nature of organic waste and where it comes from:
"Organic waste essentially refers to primary waste sources such as food and yard waste. Secondary sources are other biodegradable materials such as fats oils and grease (FOG)," said Young. "Food processing waste (beer, soda, jelly bellies, etc) are also good sources of feedstock for these facilities but would need to be procured through specific delivery agreements with the companies that currently produce or collect them."
Based upon the large amount of waste material that needs to be diverted from landfill in the region, it remains to be seen whether Zero Waste Energy will look to sources of feedstock outside of the material they collect in conjunction with their municipal contracts.
The Zanker Biogas project will use an anaerobic digestion method
Conversion of organic wastes to energy can be accomplished through thermal processes including incineration, gasification, and pyrolysis, or biological processes such as anaerobic digestion and fermentation. Thermal processes are defined by the application of heat and can be applied to a wide range of feedstocks to produce heat, and gases. Biological processes such as digestion function at much lower temperatures (over 100 degrees less), and utilize biodegradable feedstock.
The facility that is proposed for the Zanker biogas project is a biological digestion facility that will take in food waste and yard waste to produce methane and a digestate that can be composted to produce a marketable soil amendment. While anaerobic digestion is currently used in the agricultural and wastewater industries, the proposed dry fermentation technology is unique because it can handle hard to divert materials such as food waste which is as dry as 50% total solids. Typical dairy and wastewater digestion feedstock are much wetter, ranging from 8-15% solids.
This tailored technology will help San Jose to divert food from the landfill and create renewable energy to meet Green Vision goals, which set ten ambitious goals for environmental protection and economic development over the course of a fifteen year period.
The Zanker Biogas facility is expected to be up and running by 2011.
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