Here's a small sampling of the types of projects we're working on at Johnson Energy Solutions LLC as a result of our "mining" efforts.
Agricultural Waste to Energy
In addition to having a strong utility and project management background our team includes a colleagues with agricultural backgrounds. We understand that proper nutrient management is a key part of dairy, hog and chicken farming operations. JES is working with state rural economic development and department of agriculture agencies to help optimize that nutrient management while providing an income stream to help improve farm economics.
This is accomplished by treating manure waste in anaerobic digester systems which produce renewable biogas as well as liquid and solid digestate streams.
The renewable biogas is either used to fuel a Combined Heat and Power unit to produce renewable electricity or is processed in a Biomethane Upgrading Plant (BUP). In that case the quality is raised to pipeline Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) standards and is injected into the pipeline. Since the RNG can be converted to CNG or LNG it is typically sold into the vehicle fuel market at a premium, providing a lucrative revenue stream for the farm. More recently there is a market to use the RNG to make renewable hydrogen.
The land application of the digestate streams from the digester can be managed in a more controlled manner allowing optimization of land usage and proper nutrient management. In some cases the solid digestate can be sold as a commercial organic compost.
Our role is to bring together a development team to provide the design, construction, financing, ownership, operation and maintenance of the anaerobic digester/BUP facilities with the farmers providing the manure waste.
Food Waste to Energy
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates food waste in the United States to be about 30 to 40 percent of the food supply.
JES is leading an effort in several communities on a three pronged approach to keep food waste out of landfills. With implementation of these exciting projects the food waste will be used as a feedstock for renewable energy.
The first step involves putting in place the resources to collect food waste at large generators such as hospitals, schools and company cafeterias.
Next we will develop a project to install anaerobic digester systems to process the food waste to form biogas. The renewable biogas is either used to fuel a Combined Heat and Power unit to produce renewable electricity or is processed in a Biomethane Upgrading Plant (BUP). In that case the quality is raised to pipeline Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) standards and is injected into the pipeline. Since the RNG can be converted to CNG or LNG it is sold into the vehicle fuel market at a premium, providing a lucrative revenue stream for the community. More recently there is a market to use the RNG to make renewable hydrogen.
In the third step we will form small local companies to take the solid digestate to be used as vegetable grade compost thus completing the food cycle in a sustainable manner.
Biomass Renewable Generation
Wood using markets are essential for healthy, productive and valuable forests for landowners. Likewise, wood using facilities are critical to help protect the forest from catastrophic destructive agents such as fire, diseases and insects. Maintaining healthy tree age classes and tree density allows forests to grow vigorously, be less susceptible to diseases and insects and contain less understory vegetation that helps mitigate fire severity. Key to these efforts is access to markets for pulpwood size round wood and mill residues.
Complimentary to these facts, State governments place a high priority on rural development particularly as it relates to the economy, education, health and quality of life for citizens living in rural counties identified as distressed or at risk. It can be safely said that no other renewable generation source can add the jobs and associated economic development that sustainable biomass generation projects do.
For these reasons, JES is developing partnership teams with State agencies, utilities and energy services companies to develop sustainable biomass to renewable hydrogen projects. This renewable hydrogen can be used for vehicle fuel, direct electric generation, or can be blended with natural gas to reduce carbon footprints.
We use pyrolysis of the biomass to produce synthetic gas which can be fired in a genset to produce renewable electricity or refined to produce fuel cell quality renewable hydrogen. The byproduct of these systems is a high quality biochar. This biochar can be upgraded to higher value products used in the electric vehicle supply chain.
All of these facilities will provide dispatchable 24/7 renewable generation to the grid.
Our role is to bring together a team to provide the design, construction, financing, ownership, operation and maintenance of the generation facilities as well as the development of the fuel supply chain. We also utilize our background and contacts to help facilitate negotiations with the electric utilities.