The Truth About Biogas Digesters
What Are Biogas Digesters?
Biogas digesters are industrial systems designed to convert livestock manure and other organic waste into methane gas, which can be burned for electricity or fuel. Promoted as a “renewable energy” solution, these digesters are increasingly being built alongside or within large-scale factory farms—concentrating pollution and profits into fewer hands.
While biogas technology may sound clean, the reality is far messier.
Why We’re Concerned
Air Pollution & Health Risks
Digesters emit methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide—dangerous gases that can cause headaches, respiratory illness, and long-term neurological damage for those living nearby.
Water Contamination
Leaks, spills, and overapplication of digester waste to land can contaminate groundwater and surface water with nitrates, pathogens, and heavy metals, threatening our rural drinking water.
Publicly Funded Pollution
These digesters are heavily subsidized by taxpayer dollars under the guise of climate action. In reality, they enable and expand the same factory farms that are already polluting our land, water, and communities.
Industrial Expansion Disguised as Green Energy
Far from reducing industrial ag, digesters lock communities into continued dependence on confinement livestock operations. These facilities don’t make pollution go away—they concentrate it.
There Is a Better Way
Instead of propping up polluting systems, Nebraska should invest in:
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Regenerative agriculture that rebuilds soil health, cleans water and sequesters carbon
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Composting programs that return nutrients to the land safely
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Diversified farms that support rural economies and communities, not Wall Street investors
Take Action
Contact Your Legislator
Tell them: No more public dollars for corporate biogas.
Learn More in Our Resource Library
→ Learn More about how Biogas impacts communities and how to push back
Join the Fight
→ Sign Up for Action and help us stop the spread of dirty digesters in our communities.