For the last year, Bellingham’s Bellair Charters has been working with Western’s Vehicle Research Institute (VRI) for the VRI's Biomethane for Transportation project. The VRI is planning on purchasing three new engines for buses that they will convert for Bellair that run on biomethane—a fuel made from cow manure.

Funding for the engines came from a Department of Energy grant to the VRI totaling $500,000.

The grant was a portion of the $15 million grant given to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. The VRI and Bellair Charters are hoping to complete the engine conversions in time for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in February.

The biomethane is created using dairy cow manure that is put through a machine called an anaerobic digester, which sorts out the solids from the gas in the manure. The gases are then run through a machine called a “scrubber,” which removes contaminants to make it clean and ready for use in a combustion engine.

The Biomethane for Transportation project is an ongoing effort by the VRI to use the manure of dairy cows to power automobile engines. The biomethane for the project is coming from the Vander Haak Dairy in Lynden.

“They have the first anaerobic digester in the state,” said Western professor Eric Leonhardt, VRI director of the Biomethane for Transportation project. “Biogas from manure is produced at the dairy and sold to Puget Sound Energy. We’re just trying to upgrade the gas.”

As an environmentally friendly fuel, biomethane has positives and negatives. Leonhardt said the buses running on biomethane still release carbon dioxide emissions, but would release nearly 23 times less carbon dioxide, a dramatic drop in emissions. Due to their low emission levels and the removal of contaminants, he referred to the buses as running “carbon-negative.”

VRI staff researcher Ben Vos said biomethane is a far superior fuel that is cleaner, cheaper and safer than other environmentally friendly fuels. Liquid fuels are dangerous because of their easy combustion; gas fuels, such as biomethane, require a specific environment for them to become combustible and are therefore a safer alternative fuel.

By creating biomethane from the manure, farmers also help protect the environment. Normally, cow manure is washed into a man-made lagoon near the farms where the chemicals can enter the air, soil and water, polluting them and creating the stench associated with cow manure.

“We were interested right off the bat,” said Joel Litwin of Bellair Charters. “Eric had a great idea. We are always looking for ways to be ‘green.’”

Litwin said Bellair Charters wants to be an example. Bellair has tried running their buses on biodiesel in the past, however they had engine troubles.

Western senior Calum Clark said the project sounds like a worthy cause.

“As long as it’s cost effective and reduces the environmental impact of excess animal waste to produce clean energy, it sounds like a good idea to me,” Clark said.
Leonhardt said the project would not end with Bellair Charters. The next phase after the engines are completed for Bellair will be talking to the Whatcom Transit Authority and the public utility district for Whatcom County about use of biomethane in county buses.

He said he believes the total cost could be as high as $10 million to reach the point where biomethane could be used throughout the county.

The money would go toward purchasing more anaerobic digesters and easing the transportation of biomethane by constructing a pipeline from the Vander Haak dairy farm for large-scale use around the county.

The adaptation of biomethane in buses around Whatcom County could come as a great resource to the county’s economy with so many dairy farms present, according to Leonhardt’s research.

However, it will take years before there is enough money to convert all of the buses in the county to biomethane in a way that is cost effective for the dairy farms.

With biomethane being as clean, cheap and safe as it is, Vos said he believes it is only a matter of time until biomethane could change the public perception on environmentally friendly fuels.

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