Aug. 12, 2006: Senator Orrin Hatch scrambles up the steps to the top of the three-story processing tank and peers into the clear plastic cover. Bubbles of colorless methane gas percolate out of the murky, foaming brew.

The senator went first. "Courageous," Professor Conly Hansen '72 '73MS says afterwards. Then Utah State University Provost Ray Coward and Conly's boss, agriculture dean Noelle Cockett, hike up to take a look.

While an aide to the Senator takes pictures, Conly and his business partners, neighbor Ed Watts and brother Carl, beam. They've just been given free advertising for their new company, Andigen, and its multi-tasker of a recycling plant, their IBR anaerobic digester. One of the photos will be displayed on Senator Hatch's website at www.senate.gov.

The demonstration took place at a dairy farm near Ogden, Utah. The anaerobic digester processes cow manure into methane gas, which is pumped into a Caterpillar engine, where it is converted into electricity for the grid. The electricity is transported to its destination in a residential neighborhood via a public utilities transmission line.

One of the inventors of the digester, mechanical and agricultural engineer Conly Hansen, has spent the better part of three decades researching ways to recycle agricultural waste, the bane of dairy farmers and their neighbors. The IBR is the latest edition and one of the first to be purchased by an already satisfied customer. The Hansen brothers derive satisfaction from helping him out. This farmer won't have to worry so much about odor and water pollution complaints and citations, and he can make a profit from selling the electricity back to the utilities company. The excess nutrient-rich effluvium that can't be digested by the digester makes great compost.

"The timing is right for a technology of this kind. The door is wide open for someone to come in and do a good job," says company president Ed Watts, a Los Angeles native with 25 years of business management and manufacturing experience, primarily in the electronics industry.

Conly's co-inventor, his older brother Carl, writes the system management plans and grant proposals for farmers so they can afford the cost of the digester. He is a master electrician and mechanic because of his upbringing and doctoral degree in agriculture.

"After the oil embargo in the 1970s, there were lots of anaerobic digesters but most of them failed and farmers shied away from them," says Carl, who grew up on a family farm himself. First-generation digesters lasted only a few years.
Andigen's processor works like a champ but the input and output systems clog occasionally. Manure is viscous, and manure with sand in it can really gum up the works.

Even without a few plumbing problems in need of fixing, the hours would be long at this stage of the game. Fifty percent of startups fail during their conversion from prototype to marketplace. "We call it the Valley of Death," says Carl, who has never started a business before.

"You can build anything in a pilot. But can you replicate it? And can a farmer operate it?" says Watts.

Watts took the plunge because he recognized the technological edge in Conly's design. Able to process manure at three times the rate of most other digesters on the market, the Hansens' digester can dispense with the usual concrete storage and processing bunkers, and their system comes in modules, which can be added -to the competitive advantage of a small farmer - as sales, and production demand, increase.

In Rupert, Idaho, another customer, also a dairy farmer, is converting methane into biogas for trucks. With gasoline at $3 a gallon and rising, the incentives are obvious.
There are other USTAR-related plans involving other sustainable energy experts on campus. But Conly won't reveal details. "I'd get into trouble. It's too soon." -Jane Koerner