Bay Area’s finest restaurants are being turned green by converting tons of their table scraps into clean, renewable energy. All these environmentally-noble ventures are being made at a new UC Davis research and technology demonstration facility.
The Biogas Energy Project will be processing eight tons of leftovers each week, which may later be increased to as much as eight tons daily! That sounds amazing and highly ‘green’! The food leftovers will be collected from premier restaurants such as San Francisco’s Slanted Door, Jardiniere, Scoma’s, Boulevard and Zuni Cafe, and Oakland’s Oliveto and Scott’s Seafood.
The first large-scale demonstration of a new technology in the United States, the Biogas Energy Project is developed in the past eight years by Ruihong Zhang, a UC Davis professor of biological and agricultural engineering.
The technology is called “anaerobic phased solids digester”.
This diversion of organic matter will necessarily relief the already landfills from food waste and yard clippings moving them into the energy grid. Thus, the greenhouse gas emissions from landfills will be considerably reduced, turning trash into a substantial source of clean energy.
