Dairy farm and UWO team up on energy project

ROSENDALE - As the states largest milk producer, at more than 625,000 pounds per day, Rosendale Dairy also produces a lot of something else.

"We get about, a little over 9,000 acres of fertilizer per year," said Bill Harke, the Director of Public Affairs for Milk Source, which owns Rosendale Dairy.

Along UW-Oshkosh, the dairy is looking to make different use of all that manure, with plans to build a biodigester on the farm.

"Kind of solving an educational and research mission while solving an environmental issue as well," said Greg Kleinheinz, professor of microbiology at UW-Oshkosh.

The university already has one digester near campus that it recently started operating and expects to start pulling energy from next month. That one uses grass clippings from the city as well as crop waste. It will soon also be using food scraps from campus.

"This one could produce as much as 10 percent of the university's electric needs, and this is just a fraction of the size of the newer system," said Kleinheinz.

The university has a goal of being carbon neutral, or basically off the grid, by 2015. With plans to sell the energy from the new digester to utility companies, it says this project could potentially cut that time in half.

The project is not expected to put a cramp in the dairy farms fertilizer business, which generates about $2.5 million per year.

"That's something our growers were really concerned about," said Harke. "The thought process is many times, is you have a digester, you don't have manure left, but you get it all back."

However, the project is expected to bolster learning at Oshkosh. The digester will be largely student run and will also include an education center for elementary through high school students.

"Really a great opportunity for training the next workforce in bio energy," said Kleinheinz.

An estimated final cost has not been released. The project is being funded by the Oshkosh University Foundation and will not directly use tax dollars.

The university hopes to break ground on the project next spring, with the possibility of being up and running by 2013.