New UVM Bioenergy Course: Waste to Energy Available this Spring

Following the Fall Semester UVM bioenergy course Bioenergy: Biomass to Biofuels, the University of Vermont will be offering a new bioenergy course this spring entitled Waste to Energy: Community Development Application. The course will again be taught by Anju Dahiya, cofounder of General Systems Research, LLC (GSR), lead biofuels instructor at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, and a Vermont Bioenergy Initiative algae for biofuel grant recipient. This course is open to both degree and non-degree students from any background or department, as well as farmers, entrepreneurs, and teachers interested in developing curriculum, or projects at school or college levels. This course is also approved for graduate credit.

In a Vermont post Act 148, the universal recycling law for solid waste, food waste, dairy farm manure, municipal wastes, landfill waste, carbon exhaust, nutrient runoff and other materials not being converted into value products are all resources that hold potential energy that can be developed in a sustainable way to power a local economy. This class focusing on waste sourced bioenergy comes on the heels of a promising results and continued work by Dahiya’s company GSR on incorporating algae into Green Mountain Power’s anaerobic digester at Nordic Farms in Shelburne, Vermont. The product serves as a strong example in which excess nitrogen and phosphorus in cow manure would find its way off farmland and end affecting health of natural water bodies, but instead is harnessed to make electricity and biofuel. As listed in the course catalog “the mission of this program is to provide hands-on instruction in all possible Bioenergy areas, support generation of related skilled workforce and stimulate sustainable energy production.”

Lectures will be held every on campus every Friday during the UVM spring semester from 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm, with 5 additionally required off campus field trips. The course required textbook, Bioenergy: Biomass to Biofuels, was edited by Anju Dahiya less than a year ago and represents a compilation of work from an extensive list of well-respected university extension programs, such as The University of Vermont Research Extension, as well as numerous national organizations including the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratories.

Learn more about this course at the University of Vermont Renewable BioEnergy page or email the lead instructor Anju Dahiya at adahiya@uvm.edu.