Whitefish company unveils biorefinery project

One man’s waste is another man’s opportunity to create useable products.

That seems to be the overall concept driving Algae Aqua-Culture Technology’s biorefinery plant at F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber.

The company, based in Whitefish, has been working for several years to create its Green Power House. The project uses wood waste from Stoltze to grow algae and convert it into methane, as well as to yield a byproduct in the form of soil fertilizer.

Robin Kelson, vice president of corporate development, said the process takes otherwise unused material and turns it into useable products.

“We’re in a close loop system and we don’t generate any waste ourselves while creating various value-added products,” she said.

The Green Power House is the vision of Michael Smith, a mathematician and physicist. The company laid the foundation for the 5,000 square foot greenhouse in 2010 and is celebrating the official beginning of production. Initial funding came from a $350,000 grant from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

The greenhouse opens to the public Thursday, Aug. 23 with a dedication and open house.

The most visual aspect of the project is the octagonal green house that stands three stories high to the west of the Stoltze plant. Long vats of green algae comprise most of the floor space.

The algae is grown in the vats and then harvested. It’s then pumped to a tank before entering the second phase: the anaerobic bioreactor. Here the algae is processed to produce methane and hydrogen, which can be converted into electricity. The byproduct is a nutrient-rich solid matter to be used for plant fertilizer.

Kelson likens the process to a buffalo eating in the prairie.

“It’s the same way a buffalo digestive system works,” she said. “When a buffalo digests it breaks down the plant material and the result is fertilizer and methane.”

The third component of the Green Power House is the organic carbon engine that uses Stoltze’s wood waste. Kelson said though Stoltze is efficient with the wood it mills, 100 to 150 tons of waste materials are created each day.

The wood is heated without oxygen, mimicking nature’s way of returning carbon to the earth.

Kelson said heating the wood is helping along a natural process.

“The piles of wood waste would take 400 years to decompose,” she said. “It takes us 40 minutes to reduce the wood to soil carbon and 40 days to turn that into soil amendment.”

The result is several byproducts including biofuel and syngas that can be turned into electricity. The wood waste itself becomes organic carbon that works well in combination with the algae solid and can to be used as a nitrogen- and carbon-rich fertilizer.

Kelson said the fertilizer and soil amendments that result from the process have been shown to greatly benefit plants.

“Most soil is deficient in carbon, but with this technology we can return carbon, along with the nitrogen from the algae, to the soil,” she said. “We can revitalize soil.”

Heat, water and carbon dioxide passed through the integrated system benefiting the various processes. For example, heat from burning the wood waste is used to heat both the green house to grow the algae and also the algae digester.

“We’re taking an ecological system process and bringing it into one place,” Kelson said. “We don’t mess with the algae. The only thing we really do is heat the wood. We’re speeding up Mother Nature.”

The entire process uses an integrated system that links the components together for efficient production. The different processes communicate with each other to share power and keep efficiency levels high.

Algae Aqua-Culture Technology expects to begin selling the fertilizers by next spring. The plant can generate two tons of biochar per week. It’s one way for the plant to keep itself in business.

Kelson said as far as they know, the Green Power House is the only facility of its kind. The individual processes are being practiced, but not together.

First Nations communities in Canada have shown interest, as well as, the University of Hawaii, which would use the greenhouse as a teaching tool, but also to generate electricity for buildings. Industrial plants such as Stoltze could combine several of the greenhouses to power their operations.

The open house is from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tours of the facility will be given and a dedication will take place at 6:15 p.m. Folks are asked to arrive at 5:30 p.m. at the Stoltze office parking lot on Half Moon Road and a shuttle will be provided to the site. To attend RSVP to info@algaeaqua.com or 862-7678.