A far-sighted energy and waste treatment system has been developed by the Camphill Community in Kilkenny and could be a model for other enterprises. Farm and food industry waste is being transformed into heat and electrical energy in a centralised unit at the community's base in Ballytobin, outside Callan.
The community's network of houses and organic farms, where people with disabilities and volunteers of many nationalities live as co-workers, has set a benchmark in sustainable living with its reed-bed waste treatment system.
This circulates the community's sewage through a series of ponds, where bulrushes and other aquatic plants break down the mineral and organic components by a natural process, finally discharging water that is non-polluting and almost 100 per cent pure.
The new waste-to-energy plant, which was switched on before Christmas, is based on the anaerobic digestion system (ADS) developed in Germany. The system is run by Bio-Energy and Organic Fertiliser Services (BEOFS), a company owned by members of the Camphill Community.
Slurry from local farms and food-industry waste is taken into the anaerobic digester, in which bacterial action causes gas to be released from the slurry. The extracted gas is then burned in a combined heat and power unit to create energy for central heating and electricity which, it is hoped, will be sold to the national grid.
There are additional benefits. The digested slurry is put through a separator and broken into liquid and solid portions. The liquid element, free of odour and with enhanced fertiliser value, is returned to the supplying farmers for spreading on land, while the solids are composted and marketed as organic garden compost.
Ultimately, the key to the project will be the ability to sell surplus power to the ESB.
The production of electricity is more expensive using the ADS system than conventional methods, but Mr Patrick Lydon of the Camphill Community insists the promotion of environmentally-friendly technology makes the extra investment worth it.
The system has been developed with EU support and, when fully operational, is expected to serve as a model for bio-gas technology in Ireland.
To that end a partnership has been developed between BEOFS, the Department of Microbiology at NUI Galway, the Tipperary Rural and Business Development Institute and Fachverband Biogas (the German Association of Biogas Products).
The community will outline the benefits of the system and make its case for Government support to the Oireachtas Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport later this month.