Tour participants got a close look at a sample of the carbon that will soon be captured at the dairy digester. A Bothell, Wash.-based company called Modern Hydrogen will extract granulated carbon from methane to produce pure hydrogen.
“So this technology lets them take that methane that's getting delivered to them and convert it to hydrogen so that they can burn the hydrogen and then collect the carbon instead of spewing it in the air,” Robinson said.
The only emissions from burning hydrogen is water vapor. It’s about the cleanest fuel out there. And methane is just about the dirtiest, before it’s burned. It’s more than 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The technology comes from Modern Hydrogen, previously known as Modern Electron. The Bothell, Wash.-based company is focused on reducing emissions from biogas, like what Qualco Energy produces from cow manure, within the existing gas infrastructure.
