STARBUCK, Man. – Few people would try to solve a chronic gas problem with rubber pants but the Starlite Hutterite colony hopes that principle will solve odour problems emanating from its hog manure lagoon.
The colony also hopes that wrapping and sealing its manure lagoon will enable it to trap the methane and use the gas to replace coal the colony hauls in from Saskatchewan to heat its hog barns in the winter.
It is the kind of thinking that Bruce Love believes will spread among farmers once carbon offset markets develop across Canada and the United States.
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“Things like this are starting to make sense,” said Love, standing beside the wrapped lagoon designed by his company, Preferred Carbon.
“Agriculture has some large opportunities in this area to be part of the solution.”
A non-voluntary carbon offset market has been established in Alberta and Saskatchewan is establishing one. Both the Canadian and U.S. governments have announced plans to form national carbon offset markets.
A carbon offset market is one in which carbon dioxide emitters are penalized for producing more than a certain amount of gas but are able to reduce their penalties by paying other companies or individuals to reduce carbon dioxide emissions instead. This creates an incentive for the emitting company to reduce its carbon emissions and provides a reward for others to do the same.
In Alberta, big producers of carbon dioxide get hit with a $15 per tonne penalty for above-limit production. That has sparked some big emitters to pay up to $12 to buy carbon credits.
The project on the Starlite colony is being conducted by Love’s company to demonstrate the technology and develop more information about how much carbon dioxide and other gases can be trapped from enclosing a hog manure lagoon.
Two similar wrapped lagoons are being operated by Love’s group in southern Alberta.
While Love’s focus is on methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from hog manure and thereby producing a valuable commodity in the form of carbon offset credits for the farmer, Leonard Hofer of Starlite has a more local concern.
“We want to keep the smell down,” said Hofer, the colony’s secretary.
“We’ve tried many things before in the last 10 or 15 years and nothing has seemed to work. The neighbours complain.”
Just behind Hofer’s back was a straw-covered manure lagoon, one that had holes in the cover and needed to be re-covered.
The new lagoon cover seems to be effective at reducing smell.
“It’s been hard for me to believe that something could work,” said Hofer.
“It makes sense already. I think it will be the solution for the industry in Manitoba.”
But the Manitoba government has been slow to develop a carbon offset market and Hofer thinks without that market, farmers may need subsidies to help offset the high installation cost of covered lagoons.
Love acknowledged that many farmers may take a wait-and-see approach with carbon offset collection and trading because other attempts to establish markets have failed.
