Poo power: Worthy Farm turns cow manure into clean energy
Worthy Farm – home of the legendary Glastonbury festival – is to leverage technology which turns cow manure into “super material” graphene and clean fuel.
The farm is burnishing its green credentials by using the tech, which it says has the potential to change the future of agriculture.
Currently, Worthy Farm turns tens of thousands of tonnes of cow slurry and waste into methane to generate electricity using an anaerobic digester.
Now, by teaming up with British firm Levidian and climate tech firm Hexla, around a quarter of the methane from the digester will be turned into graphene and clean hydrogen which can then be used to generate electricity.
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Graphene is a 2D form of carbon, extracted from graphite which has been hailed by some as a ‘super material’, highly effective at conducting electricity.
The Worthy Farm initiative is expected to deliver a saving of up to 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year, while the graphene will be sold as an additive to boost the performance of products as wide-ranging as batteries, concrete and plastics.
Hexla founder Andy Yeow said: “Since early 2019, our team has been researching clean hydrogen production technologies around the world, so it is a great pleasure to be announcing what we expect to be the first of many successful deployments in conjunction with Levidian today.
“The Levidian LOOP, with its unique solid carbon by-product of high-quality graphene, is the standout technology – from both a thermal efficiency and marginal cost basis – in an extremely competitive field.”
“We are proud to be playing a key role in the scale-up of this truly game-changing technology and are focused on deploying it on an industrial scale to some of the most attractive hydrogen production markets in the world.”
Levidian CEO John Hartley said: “The Worthy Farm project is a great example of innovation within the agricultural sector and an important showcase of the vast flexibility and potential of our technology in decarbonising hard-to-abate industries, while unlocking new revenue streams.
“We’re delighted to be working with Hexla to help further our aims for this pioneering technology, including the development of our LOOP1000 unit, which will deliver industrial-scale levels of decarbonisation and place us amongst the best available carbon capture technology on the market.”
In April this year, Glastonbury teamed up with Trainline to encourage festival-goers to help the planet and book a train in advance to Worthy Farm this summer.
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