Turning waste into energy

VILLARD, Minn. — Every 48 hours, fuel trucks rumble down the gravel roads of Malecha Dairy towards the towering column and large grey dome in the distance. The trucks arrive empty, swap out trailers and depart fully loaded with fresh, renewable natural gas — a continuous cycle that has transformed a traditional dairy farm into a site for additional revenue and clean energy.

With the new facility running for over half a year now, the owners of Malecha Dairy and Biogasco LLC partnered with the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute to host a tour of the project and partnership at the farm June 23 near Villard.

The biogas facility was commissioned in May 2025 and completed that November. Ownership is split between Biogasco and Malecha Dairy, which aligns incentives and ensures mutual benefits. The farm carries minimal financial exposure, as Biogasco assumes most of the financial risk and responsibility.

Founded in 1989 by Todd and Louise Malecha, the multigenerational, family-run farm has evolved greatly in the nearly four decades since its inception.

“We started out with less than nothing,” Todd said. “We had 13 cows paid for.”

Today, the family has over 2,300 cows that are raised and managed on the farm their entire lives. The dairy has also grown to become a part of Malecha Enterprises, which offers a range of agriculture services such as custom chopping, straw baling, agricultural and environmental pumping, and more.

Several of Todd and Louise’s children continue to remain active in the family business. The rest of their family, including 24 grandchildren and one on the way, enjoy visiting the farm and helping.

“(As farmers), we fall in love with our land, we fall in love with our animals, but we have to be able to transition it to the next generation,” Todd said. “We have to be able to create that vision and life for them to want to come back. It really boils down to quality of life, opportunity and creating a compelling vision for the next generation.”

Recently, the Malechas’ newest opportunity presented itself at the door of their dairy.

Aaron Evens, CEO of Biogasco — a company that develops, assembles and maintains digesters and renewable natural gas plants — approached the family with a business proposal. The idea was a partnership that would allow Biogasco to lease two square acres to develop and install an anaerobic digester and a renewable natural gas system on the farm.

Soon after the initial discussion, Todd, Aaron and others flew to Mexico to see a digester using tequila plants, milk waste and hog manure to successfully produce methane. They also went to Finland, where many cars run on dual-fuel, and saw multiple small-scale digesters that use yard waste and manure.

After seeing the success of other facilities around the world, the Malechas agreed to partner with Biogasco to create the plant.

During the tour in June, Biogasco’s chief operating officer, Mitchell Torborg, Evans and other employees showed guests the facility and explained how it operates.

During the design process, Biogasco matched equipment to the herd size, constructing a smaller, $3.5 million digester at Malecha Dairy instead of a large central facility. This was so it could be profitable on a 1,000-3,000 cow dairy.

The plant at Malecha Dairy has three main components: the digester, an upgrader and a compressor. The digester is a 1.1-million-gallon, 16.5-foot-deep oxygen-free tank in which cow manure collected from the farm is pumped.

“We have sensors all over so we can monitor gas pressure, liquid levels, the dome height — just to make sure that everything’s correlating to how we want it to run,” Torborg said.

The manure is then recirculated at around 102-103 degrees for 20-25 days, using boilers and pumps to maintain temperature and flow. The system adds nearly 200 gallons of water a day to support circulation and process efficiency. Microorganisms break down the waste, generating biogas — a renewable energy source composed of methane and carbon dioxide that collects under the dome — and digestate, a liquid or solid nutrient-rich material used as fertilizer. The manure is then returned to the farm, with the liquid material being used as fertilizer and the solid for bedding.

The raw biogas is then sent to the upgrader, which takes biogas from around 60% methane to almost 100%. The gas is passed through equipment to remove moisture, hydrogen sulfide and other corrosive materials. The gas is pressurized in a single steel column, and then depressurized in the desorption column. This changes the biogas to renewable natural gas.

“The kindergarten-level explanation is essentially we make fizzy water, and then we de-fizz the water,” Torborg said. “The different pressures at which we release the bubbles, the different molecules just stick to the water at those different pressures, so that’s how we end up with pure natural gas.”

The last component, the compressor, sends the renewable natural gas through pipes into trailers hauled by Dooley’s Petroleum Inc. The trailers travel to Paynesville, where the gas is offloaded into a natural gas line for homes to use.

As trailers loaded with renewable natural gas continue to roll out every other day at Malecha Dairy, the digester is delivering benefits: generating new revenue, reducing emissions and creating more sustainable options around the farm.

For the Malechas, the towering column and large dome on the dairy show the next generation that there is still room for innovations and growth on the farm.

“What we’re doing is nothing special,” Todd said. “The only thing special about us is just the people who work with us and for us.”

Louise agreed, highlighting how smooth the partnership is between the dairy and Biogasco.

“The dairy takes care of what it needs to, and they take care of what they need to,” she said.