Montauk Ag Renewables: company arriving in Sampson County to provide new patented technology

By Nicole Zappone, posted Jan 28, 2022 on BizFayetteville.com

Recently, Sampson County officials announced that Montauk Ag Renewables, LLC is opening a facility within the county.

Over the next five years, the company is expected to be in continuous development and will disclose its process throughout.

It was in December 2021 that Montauk’s division operating in North Carolina, Montauk Ag Renewables, LLC, took possession of a location off Highway 24 in the former Bay Valley Food Distribution Center with a facility named Turkey Creek Ag, LLC. The facility is 80 acres under roof and, from this point forward, they are, for all intents and purposes, located in Sampson County as Turkey Creek Ag, LLC. CEO Sean McClain believes that Montauk’s development into North Carolina presents a unique opportunity to address environmental concerns of industrial agriculture in historically underserved communities.

“We believe our location in Turkey is strategically located in proximity to the farms we intend to service and transport agricultural waste,” said McClain

. With this new facility in the works, positions are expected to be in various areas, from laborers to experienced professionals. “We expect positions will be employees with health benefits and 401K’s,” said McClain.

Along with the jobs, they hope to have positive impacts to the environment in the services they intend to provide to the County’s farming community and collaborative processes to utilize existing farm infrastructure or creative modifications to collect and transport waste more efficiently.

Also with the new expansion comes a new patent for the company. Their technology received its patent on Aug. 24, 2021, which covers 24 unique elements.

This system enables near-zero-emissions conversion of agricultural waste into multiple non-fossil, renewable-fuel alternatives, and is capable of producing approximately 10-units of renewable energy for each unit of conventional energy consumed. It also sequesters approximately 25-tons of greenhouse gas equivalent emissions (CO2e) for every single ton emitted.

The system is driven by a continuous- feed, closed loop reactor that can scale modularly to address the environmental challenges of industrial agriculture, regardless of location or size.

“The system has the potential to generate growth opportunities both within and beyond North Carolina,” said McClain.

This system also converts agricultural waste, both plant and animal, into renewable fractional products of biogas, bio-oil and biochar. The technology accelerates into a traditional digestion process that normally takes upwards of 28 days into less than an hour and does so without microorganisms whose effectiveness can materially be altered by climate and farming practices. The renewable product fractions can replace the fossil fuels currently used for transportation and electric power generation.

Their technology does not require significant changes to the communities in which they operate. They can work with existing farms as they are currently constructed or can offer optional waste collection systems that are often more economical than the current waste management systems being used, but any changes will ultimately be the choice of the local farmers.

“Our newly patented technology is modular and scalable. Montauk is excited to identify and develop additional opportunities to deploy its technology to address the environmental challenges associated with Montauk Renewables is a USbased, publicly traded company (NASDAQ: MNTK) that specializes in developing, constructing, owning and operating beneficial use projects that capture biogas, mitigate environmentally harmful methane emissions, and create renewable natural gas and renewable electricity. The company is a fully-integrated, renewable energy company that owns and operates 15 renewable energy facilities across the United States.

“Montauk Ag Renewables aligns well with our growing renewable energy cluster across Southeast, North Carolina. We look forward to supporting Sampson County’s continued economic development successes and promoting our 18-county region as a place of choice to do business,” Steve Yost, president of NC’s Southeast, said of the company’s arrivals in a press release.

Montauk’s dynamic growth strategy includes development of new project opportunities that diversify its approach to environmental stewardship, its service to local communities and its renewable product offerings. Through its acquisition of the NR3 assets in 2021, Montauk has an operational reactor facility in Duplin County based on this newly patented technology.

The company intends to leverage this facility, as well as its recent land and building purchase in Sampson County, to construct and operate a large-scale facility of up to 20 reactors and capital investment of up to $150M. The central location of this land and building acquisition is in strategic proximity to the agriculture activities to minimize transportation costs associated with both servicing farms and transporting waste. Montauk Ag Renewables’ President Joe Carroll, stated in a press release, “We are very excited to be working to open a facility in Sampson County and believe it’s a great place for our business to take the next step in our development. We look forward to working with the County, and the great people living there, to offer quality, stable jobs, while working to positively impact the environment.”

“In general, like any other business, we hope that providing an environmentally sustainable service to the local farming community, at a fair price, we will have the opportunity to expand into similar other farming communities,” said McClain.

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