With a plan bordering on economic alchemy, Thane Hurlburt will not only generate revenue from refuse but help solidify southern Alberta’s status as a hub for the alternative energy industry
by Jane Harris
Terminology is a bit of a sticking point for Thane Hurlburt. As president of ECB Enviro North America, he’s convinced there’s money to be made from the leftovers of Lethbridge’s robust food processing sector and perhaps more surprisingly, feedlot “byproducts.” In short, he cautions, “Don’t call agricultural manure ‘waste.’”
This summer, construction is set to begin in the Rave Industrial Park in the County of Lethbridge, just east of town, on ECB’s first biogas plant. By 2010, microbes in the facility’s oxygen-free digesters will turn meat and vegetable scraps, lawn clippings and livestock manure into methane gas to fuel the generation of enough electricity to power 3,000 homes – making this one of Canada’s biggest privately owned projects of its kind. What’s more, the conversion process will offset 17,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually and produce a rich organic fertilizer for local farmers and gardeners.
This isn’t new technology. Besides its enormous popularity in Europe, the digestion of waste by bacteria has actually already proven successful in Alberta. Wastewater treatment plants in Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge, for example, already use a relatively small-scale version of the method to reduce raw sewage to innocuous sludge. And in Vegreville, Highmark Renewables has been using biogas generation to power 700 homes since 2005. But here in southern Alberta, seeding the biogas industry with a facility as big as ECB’s could have a more fundamental impact on the region’s economic outlook. For one thing, it could solve a long-standing problem with agri-food waste management. For another, the plant would solidify southern Alberta’s growing reputation as a future-friendly, energy-based economic zone.
Hurlburt knows the issues well. Born in Lethbridge and raised near Fort Macleod where ECB is based, Hurlburt’s agricultural roots run deep. He and his brother still run a herd of cattle. And, before selling last year, his family had owned a livestock auction house since 1960. But that isn’t exactly how he got turned onto the idea of connecting it all with biogas.
“My interest in biogas started when I sat on a marketing board for a concrete manufacturer looking for ways to increase sales to the agriculture industry,” says Hurlburt, who used to deal in sand and gravel and, until recently, owned concrete plants.
At first, the goal of the board was to market concrete containers in which manure could be stored safely before being spread on farmers’ fields. But the group soon realized that the problem was beyond such a simple solution. Containment was a stopgap. Mountains of manure were already threatening to contaminate groundwater and make soil too acidic for crops. That was when one of the board members mentioned his recent research into the German use of biogas technology to address similar challenges.
So in January 2001, Hurlburt visited Europe to investigate bioenergy plants and the potential of bringing the technology to southern Alberta. Back then, he says, “Germany had 1,700 biogas plants. It’s a country half the size of Alberta. Since then, they’ve added 3,000 new plants.” If he could find a way to apply this European model back home, he was certain he could both turn a profit and address a mounting environmental concern. But when he returned and established ECB, local investors were skeptical. “They took a wait-and-see attitude,” says Hurlburt, “or said, ‘Call us when you are up and running.’”
Instead of waiting, he took the advice of the Calgary process engineer working on the project and approached Ontario-based StormFisher Biogas, which owns and operates biogas plants across the continent, to help build the Lethbridge plant. “They have assembled a staff of experts to work on the business, technical and regulatory sides,” says Hurlburt. Most importantly, perhaps, “they also have a large amount of financial backing.” The result was Lethbridge Biogas, in which the two companies would share ownership, but ECB would operate, preserving a community link that Hurlburt believes will contribute to the project’s success.
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