“Nature doesn’t waste, so why do we?” asked Tim Nolan as he addressed a gathering of about 15 people who came out to the Cook County Community Center log building on a snowy night in March to hear about transforming the way industry and regular folks use energy.
Currently, said Nolan, who works as a principal planner with the sustainable industrial development program of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), “manufacturing businesses take in a lot of raw product and along with producing a finished product, produce a lot of waste product and air pollution.”
The trick, said Nolan, is to reuse the waste and wasted energy to curb not only pollution but to give your business a competitive advantage.
With fresh water moving into what Nolan called a “global crisis stage” and giant companies now asking producers to show how their finished products were produced, Nolan is advising businesses to re-think their ecological footprint. “Wal-Mart might ask to see your ‘water footprint and waste footprint’ before they buy your product.”
Nolan shared the platform with Dave Abazs, a University of Minnesota agricultural development consultant; Bruce Carman, project coordinator for Victus Farms in Silver Bay; and Bill Mittlefehldt, a member of the Minnesota Clean Energy Resource Team (CERT).
Abazs has developed and operated the Round River Farm outside of Finland, Minnesota for the last 25 years. It is an organic farm that produces its own energy. “We have been off the grid for the last 25 years,” said Abazs.
Even the vehicle used to transport vegetables to market runs on waste vegetable oil, said Abazs.
“In Cook County, residents spend $14.5 million to feed themselves. And that’s an old number. That’s a lot of money that leaves the county,” said Abazs, who said he thinks it’s entirely possible for the area to grow enough food to feed everyone in the region.
He cited carrots as an example. “Cook County residents purchase 33,000 pounds of carrots a year. It would take an acre and a half to grow all of the carrots the county now uses,” he said.
Savings would be made in transportation costs and the jobs that would be gained from the farming. Plus, the food would be organic and healthier for those who bought and ate it, he said.
Abazs is working with Victus Farms to create a sustainable closed system that uses or sells its products and waste products and produces its own energy.
Carman is the project coordinator for Victus Farms. Originally Carman, a builder from Lutsen, purchased a lot in the Silver Bay Industrial Park to build a model home. One of the things he was interested in was using a windmill to generate electricity for the spec home, “but then the housing market crashed,” said Carman.
Still, there was that question of whether a windmill of any size would be a good fit for the 122-acre park, and it got the City of Silver Bay’s Economic Development Agency (EDA) and the city to start working with Carman on this concept and other ways of conserving energy.
In September 2008, Carman and the city’s EDA identified several possible sources of renewable energy. In the following year and a half grants were written and enough money was received to fund studies on biomass/ binary, wind/solar, and algae/ biodiesel sources of energy. The studies concluded that all of these energy sources would be a good fit for the property that hugs the shore of Lake Superior.
One of the goals of Victus Farms is to eliminate fossil fuel consumption, said Carman, adding that in addition to the reduction of greenhouse gasses, there would be a significant reduction in the carbon footprint and reduction of waste.
According to a proposal for Victus Farms, “We are proposing to construct a 10,000 foot two-story greenhouse/ processing facility to demonstrate the combined production of bio-diesel from algae, produce and fish. Our research has shown that none of these production activities are economically viable on their own, but an integration of the three has the promise of sustainable energy and food production as well as creating numerous high-quality jobs.”
The facility is designed to produce 30,000 gallons of biodiesel, 50,000 pounds of fish, 3,000 pounds of tomatoes and 5,600 heads of Bibb lettuce a year. Energy will be gained onsite from wind, solar, and bio-diesel. Water will be collected from the rooftops of the greenhouses and nutrients used from the adjacent Silver Bay Wastewater Treatment Facility.
It is hoped that 10 to 15 fulltime jobs will be created as well as numerous part-time jobs.
Plants will be grown on tabletop soil beds. The soil will come from composted algal, plant and fish materials. If there is enough leftover soil, it might be bagged and offered for retail sale.
Plant water will come from fish tanks and then return to the fish tanks once the plants have absorbed the nutrients. Plant species will vary based on regional demand and produce will be grown year-round, harvested and processed in an adjacent facility.
Fish will be raised in two large tanks. Harley Toftey will process the fish. The choice of fish will be determined based on certain growth rates and regional demand.
When asked if Victus Farms would show a profit, Carman said that the farm would have to retain its nonprofit status because the City of Silver Bay owns it, but he expected the businesses that would form around it to be for-profit enterprises.
Some ideas he suggested included a biomass wood-pellet making plant, a perfume business, a pallet-making business, a fertilizer business, etc. All of these facilities would share heat, water, electricity, and use each other’s waste products to help sustain each other, he said, adding, “The model T wasn’t competitive with the horse and buggy when it first came out and we’re still subsidizing oil companies, so it’s not fair to compare profits with emerging technologies.” Bill Mitlefehldt said, “The 21st century will work differently than the 20th century. Transportation costs continue to rise. The cost could get catastrophic soon. We’re dancing on the edge of [fossil fuel] capacity. We need a new business model. That’s what the competition will be doing. We can capture those competitive advantages now if we act. We can improve the health of the forest with proper management and keep young people employed with meaningful jobs.
“There is two trillion dollars in investment sitting on the side lines that is waiting to be invested. This could be a place where some of that money goes. This is how you grow jobs and feed people.” He urged the people in the room to take advantage of the knowledge of Nolan, Carman and Abazs. He said he would be available to help with a similar, sustainable project the local community would be willing to pursue.
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