Construction of the state’s largest anaerobic digester Bioenergy DEVCO facility is nearly complete in Jessup. Gov. Larry Hogan granted more than $460,000 to support the construction of the new facility. “This state-of-the-art facility will allow Howard County and our administration to address the challenges of organics and landfills and incineration, but also dramatically reduce the impact these wastes have on greenhouse gas emissions,” Howard County Executive Calvin Ball said.
“This is really a cow’s stomach on a very, very large scale. The same microbes in a cow’s stomach process our organic material, and that turns it into renewable energy and a compost-like fertilizer,” said Shawn Kreloff, CEO of Bioenergy DEVCO.
Inside giant tanks at the facility are billions of tiny microbes processing material and converting it on a very large scale. “The natural gas gets cleaned up and gets put back into Baltimore Gas and Electric’s pipeline directly, so people can use it to heat homes and make energy,” Kreloff said.