Nuke plant partners with dairymen
Facility would use dairy waste to produce natural gas
By Matt Christensen
Times-News writer
Aug 16, 2007

BRUNEAU - A company with plans to build the state's first commercial nuclear power plant has become an unusual bedfellow of Idaho's most influential industry.

Alternate Energy Holdings, which plans to build a $3.5 billion nuclear power plant in Owyhee County, says it's working on an agreement with dairymen to buy their manure for methane gas production.

If the plant is built - and the dairy deal goes through - the project could reduce dairy waste, produce the main component for lucrative natural gas and lessen the amount of water needed to cool the reactor.

It's a deal even the company's harshest critic supports.

"It's a good idea," said Ester Ceja, of Snake River Alliance, an Idaho-based nuclear watchdog group.

Using dairy waste to produce natural gas is good for the environment, she said, though her group is still skeptical about the plant in general.

Here's how the dairy project would work:

Dairy manure would be fed into an anaerobic digester - a machine that essentially ferments waste into methane, the main component of natural gas.

The gas would be sold on the energy market, and dairymen would share in the profits.

Heat from the nuke plant would power the digester, lessening the amount of water needed to cool the reactor.

"It'd be a pioneering project," said Martin Johncox, a spokesman for AEH. He's not aware of any other energy plant that pairs nuclear power and methane production.

Neither is Harold McFarland, deputy associate lab director for nuclear programs at the Idaho National Laboratory. "No," he said, "it's certainly not a common practice."

McFarland said INL used excess heat from a reactor between 1964 and 1994 to heat the facility's work space during winters, but he's not ever heard of a reactor powering a digester.

But before AEH turns waste into profits, it must complete a rigorous application process through the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which takes several years.

In the meantime, the company will continue to solicit dairymen for the methane project, the company said.