What happens when one dairy farmer sees the vision behind next-generation energy technology? With the Athena Circularity Center in southeast South Dakota, RNG digester facilities are bringing renewable energy to the state, along with multiple economic opportunities and a greener future.
What Is the Athena Circularity Center?
Lynn Boadwine started a partnership with Brightmark Energy in 2020 that led to a unique project, the first of many to come. Boadwine’s three dairy farms north of Sioux Falls, SD, wanted to change how they utilized cattle waste while also improving revenue.
The Athena Circularity Center was the solution. Uniting Boadwine Dairy, Pioneer Dairy, and Mooody Dairy, the center started producing renewable natural gas (RNG) from the manure of their nearly 13,000 cows. With six digester tanks across the three properties, the Athena Circularity Center can convert 462,000 tons of cattle slurry each year into around 217,000 MMBtu of RNG.
The three facilities are connected by nearly 60 miles of gas pipeline, constructed by NPL, part of Centuri Group, Inc. This project provides greenhouse gas reductions equivalent to more than 64,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year, about the same reduction achieved by 84,000 acres of forest per year.
Challenges of the Athena Project
Starting with a joint venture partnership between Chevron U.S.A., Inc., and Brightmark Fund Holdings LLC, Boadwine Farms broke ground on the Athena RNG digester project in 2021, working with multiple companies and investors nationwide to create the state’s first manure-sourced renewable energy supply center. And in August 2022, the circularity center sent its first supply of methane-sourced RNG to the local interstate pipeline, where it is used for transportation, cooking, and electricity.
But before that first gas could be produced, there were some serious challenges to overcome. For Brooks, those challenges were met head-on with innovative solutions and partnerships.
First Circularity Center in South Dakota
When Brooks first bid this project in 2020, there was no other digester system in the state of South Dakota. The technical requirements made it clear that this would be a massive project, but our teams had to figure out exactly how the Athena Circularity Center would come together.
Our team lead, Brooks Vice President Jeni Brooks, worked with the technology vendor, the dairy owner, and concrete construction companies in other states to determine the scope of work, as well as logistics challenges along the way.
Multiple Sites
The three dairies that make up the Athena Circularity Center were miles apart, creating a challenge for the teams involved in construction. One of the innovations we utilized to meet this challenge was a special gangform system that was easy to assemble, use, and disassemble.
Redi-Radius gangforms from EFCO provided the perfect solution for this extensive project’s unique requirements. With the ability to assemble these forms into any radius required for these facilities, we were able to quickly and safely build multiple separate digesters and containment tanks.
Rebar Fabrication
Steel-reinforced concrete is ideal for this type of project, but it comes with challenges. For Brooks Construction, the amount of rebar needed was more than any project we had completed in the past.
Jeni Brooks says, “Before this project, I had never seen that much steel before in my life, ever. These are 22-foot tall tanks, tied eight inches on center, with a double mat.”
This kind of project needed experienced teams that could safely tie the steel into place. For this, Brooks reached out to another concrete company.
“A friend of mine has a concrete company down in Texas, and she sent up some of her guys to come up and tie our steel for us. It ended up being a significant partnership between us and another woman-led concrete business, which was an amazing way to approach this challenge.”
Curved Concrete
Few concrete companies work with curved concrete walls on a regular basis. But with our concrete dome division, KingDome Builders, Brooks came into RNG digester construction with an advantage. The EFCO Redi-Radius forms made it possible to pour multiple curved walls at different diameters across the three sites.
Economic Benefits for the Athena Circularity Center Dairy Farms
Today, the Athena RNG project is responsible for enough renewable fuel to power more than 2,400 electric vehicles per year. But its economic benefits for local farms and communities go beyond electric cars.
Renewable Energy Infrastructure
RNG bolsters South Dakota farm revenue while strengthening our energy infrastructure. And since cattle manure is the primary source of this fuel, it’s one of the most renewable forms of energy available today.
Chemical-Free Fertilizer
Once the cattle slurry has been processed, the remaining digestate is an effective organic fertilizer. The dairy farms can use it for themselves, or they can sell it to other local farms.
Land Leasing Agreements
The energy technology companies that invest in these digester projects lease land from the farms to build and house the facilities. For the investors, this is an efficient way to guarantee a steady supply of manure. For farmers, this offers another revenue stream.
Better Waste Solutions
Slurry lagoons have long been used to store manure and bedding waste until it decomposes into usable fertilizer. But they’re known to be dangerous, and they provide only one economic benefit with limited efficiency. Manure digesters replace these lagoons with a safer alternative that produces multiple economic opportunities for dairy farmers.
Bringing Carbon-Negative Agriculture to South Dakota
The economic benefits of RNG digester facilities are impressive, but the investor behind the Athena Circularity Center, Brightmark Energy, has a more significant vision for these energy centers.
Founder and CEO Bob Powell states, “I started Brightmark with one goal: create a world without waste.”
For Lynn Boadwine, that vision is a core value behind his investments in Athena, as well as his manure digester facilities at Full Circle and Mill Valley dairies, in Hurley and Milbank.
“As dairy farmers, we can be part of the solution in helping the environment. The digester projects are a win-win because we have the ability to further process the manure while reducing greenhouse gasses.”
Removing Greenhouse Gasses
Sustainable agriculture is still a newer concept, but it has been difficult to implement cost-effective systems in the past. But circularity centers like Athena are making it possible for farms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions instead of increasing them. Brightmark’s mission is to transform agriculture businesses into carbon-negative centers through methane containment and conversion into non-fossil-fuel energy. Along with Athena, Boadwine has built centers at Mill Valley Dairy in Milbank, SD, and Full Circle Dairy in Hurley, SD, to achieve this goal at all his farms.
Greener Fuel
Electric vehicles are designed to reduce fossil-fuel emissions, but electricity often still relies on coal as the main fuel. Boadwine’s Athena Circularity Center cuts coal out of the equation by supplying organically sourced biogas for energy. This greener alternative provides a solution that actually improves the environment by first capturing methane and then converting it into a replacement for fossil fuels.
Fewer Chemicals
Chemical fertilizers come with serious environmental and health risks. The digestate from RNG facilities replaces chemical fertilizers with an organic alternative.
What’s Next?
The Athena Circularity Center is already producing RNG, and we’ve also built two other facilities with Boadwine and Stockwell Engineering. This year, we’re working on new facilities near Estelline in partnership with South Dakota’s POET. Having already installed more than a dozen digester tanks, we’re enthusiastic about the upcoming opportunities to support local farming and dairy operations financially.
If you’re interested in partnering with a reputable and experienced team in biogas production, reach out to Brooks today! Our experience in the RNG digester field makes it easy for us to take a project from conception to completion. Contact us to find out more!
