Senator Bennett Makes Stop at USU Campus

Utah Senator Bob Bennett visited Utah State University Feb. 21 and met with USU President Stan Albrecht and USU’s vice president for research Brent Miller to discuss key research focuses of the institution. During his visit Bennett met with several university researchers and made stops at Innovation Campus and the Caine Dairy.

At USU’s Innovation Campus, Bennett visited with researchers from the Space Dynamics Laboratory who demonstrated the AGLITE instrument, a portable light detection and ranging instrument that measures air quality around animal farms.

 

The AGLITE was developed for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service. As chairman of the Agriculture Appropriationa Committee, Bennett was instrumental in securing funding for the project

 

“This is a great example of the government’s money well spent,” said Bennett. “This system will be instrumental in monitoring and understanding air quality in an agricultural environment.”

 

The instrument was developed in response to the need to quickly measure gas emissions from animal waste in varied locations. The Environmental Protection Agency has point systems in place that measure just one area, but wind or other natural forces such as heat convection can make point measurements difficult.

 

“With this remote system we are able to take full scans of the area within minutes,” said Gail Bingham, SDL’s chief scientist. “Since the system is portable, we can move it to adjust for the changing conditions.”

 

The overall goal of the project is to work jointly with state and federal agencies to provide the data and analysis required to make increasingly large-scale agriculture production operations less objectionable.

 

“The data we provide, along with the measurements already taken by the EPA, will enable the government to develop ways of regulating the emissions,” said Bingham.

 

While at the Caine Dairy, Bennett visited with USU researcher Conly Hansen to view his efficient, affordable system for converting manure into electricity. Hansen’s work, funded in part by the state of Utah’s Centers of Excellence program, led a startup company called Andigen, which is marketing its technology to the agricultural industry.

 

Hansen spent more than 30 years honing his research and, a few years ago, launched the university’s Center for Profitable Uses of Agricultural By-Products. Andigen is among the companies spawned by the center.

 

Andigen creates induced blanket reactors, a type of anaerobic bacterial digesters that break down organic matter and produce a by-product of methane gas. The methane, in turn, can be used to run a generator that produces electricity or it can be compressed to fuel farm vehicles.

 

Andigen’s systems feature a three-story, 32,000-gallon bioreactor into which manure is stored for up to six days. Such systems can be installed at livestock operations and food processing facilities and carry the added benefit of reducing odor.