Renewable energy is providing frontline communities with a new paradigm that brings local benefits over and above simply producing power. A new project launched by the Chicago-based nonprofit organization Green Era, for example, demonstrates how biogas production can perform multiple tasks, working as a sustainable food waste solution for local businesses while supporting urban farmers and gardeners as well.
Green Era's signature project is the Green Era Campus, a nine-acre remediated brownfields site located in the Greater Auburn Gresham community on Chicago's South Side. The power generation part of the site consists of a 35,000-square-foot facility opened last week, where an anaerobic digester has begun using natural microbial action to break down locally-sourced food waste.
The digester at Green Era Campus will produce biogas from thousands of tons of food waste annually, drawing from a large supply of local feedstock. Along with producing biogas, the microbes in the digester system render the organic material in food waste into an inert, nutrient-rich compost — which Green Era plans to use at its seven-acre farm next door.
Compost from the digester will also fuel a new two-acre vertical farm managed by the fellow Chicago nonprofit Urban Growers Collective. Once operational, the vertical farm alone is expected to produce 26,000 pounds of local food per year. The organization also plans to provide compost to other urban farmers at a low price to help offset expenses.
Read more at Triple Pundit