Now is the time of the year where you can get a whiff of the sugar beet plant in Moorhead.  If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s not a horrible smell but it’s something that you recognize.   There are six sites across North Dakota and Minnesota that processes sugar beets into something we enjoy: sugar.  American Crystal Sugar Company has a growing understanding that we need to protect our environment.  In 2008 they created a new process to take the tailings from sugar beets (waste product) and turn it into methane.

The University of Florida have been researching a new process of getting rid of sugar beet waste and turning it into something useful and contacted American Crystal to test this process.   The project received $1 million from the Xcel Energy Renewable Energy Development Fund. This process uses microorganisms to eat the beet tailings and will in turn produce methane which can be turned into electricity.

Early computations provided results as large as 125 billion British Thermal Units (BTUs) could be produced annually from tailings at the East Grand Forks site. And this is only one of the 6 sites.   Since I don’t understand what a BTU is here is a general definition: the term “BTU” is used to describe the heat value (energy content) of fuels, and also to describe the power of heating and cooling systems.

The benefits to using this new method is not only reducing the disposal costs associated with beet tailings, but also to create a usable byproduct from it.  This is also energy that is produced in America and it’s renewable.  Last, but not least, the environment will win because the carbon footprint of our factory could be reduced. I really enjoy reading about the new technology being created to reduce waste but to also fuel America.  I believe we should do whatever we can to reduce the amount of waste that is going into the landfill.  Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.