What generates enough energy to power 800 homes continuously, is more consistent than solar and wind energy, makes positive uses out of cow manure and food waste AND eliminates green house gasses? 'Cow Power'!
Stonyvale Farm, a large dairy farm, located in Maine has built a small energy plant/system that has had nothing but a positive impact on the environment around it: environmentally and economically. They are utilizing different types of waste which is producing outstanding amounts of clean burning natural gas.
Just as I was, you may be wondering how this can happen. Here is the process energy is made from cow and food waste.
Stonyvale provides the facility with 20,000 lbs of cow manure every day. This is plowed from the barn floors and transferred to a pump house. It is then pumped to the facility through pipes and enters 'anaerobic digesters'. An 8,000 gallon truck delivers food waste every day to the facility coming from grease traps and food processors. The food waste is then pumped from the truck into the digester mixing in with the manure. The digesters are heated to 104 degrees and the bacteria that is present in the manure begins to grow and multiply- producing a 60% methane 40% carbon dioxide gas which when pressure is great enough travels through pipes to generator and then the exhaust exists through a small pipe. When checking the rain cap, it is completely clean (vs. if diesel was being burned the cap would be black from the carbon). Spent material is pumped out of the machine which can be used for cow bedding or compost. The liquid that is not used is pumped back to the farm and provides as an excellent fertilizer and is practically odorless after it goes through this process. The farm saves almost $100,000 a year by reusing what they already have instead of having to buy commercial fertilizers and bedding.
There are several reason why there are few of these facilities in the US (only 100) compared to the 5,000 in Germany alone. One is European countries are more densely populated and odor control is necessary. Also, these facilities are very expensive up front ($ 5 million dollars), and even though the profits will pay back the initial in a 5 year time span, U.S. farmers do not have the same financial funding as hydro and solar power does.
It was researched and found to be that for every 2 cow's daily manure goes into the digester, it is equivalent of taking one car's greenhouse gasses off the road.
I thought this was so cool and it would be neat to see more of these facilities pop up in the Midwest being such a cattle based region!
Attached is the article if you'd like to read more about this energy method!
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/stonyvale-farm-leader-in-cow-power_2013-01-19.html?pagenum=full
I'm not sure if I understand entirely how this process would work, but it sounds really cool! I feel like there are a ton of innovative ideas out there that reduce waste and greenhouse gases like this idea does, but I wish they were all more widespread. It's hard to get people to change their ways, especially when the new way is more expensive.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting! I haven't heard of using manure to power homes but I the potential is great. After all, people have been using manure for a long time and its a "waste" to not. I do wonder how they control the odor.
ReplyDeleteHere's an article we discussed in my chemistry class about this happening right here in Nebraska! Fascinating!
ReplyDeletehttp://journalstar.com/special-section/epilogue/epilogue-farmer-takes-the-waste-and-odor-out-of-hog/article_0e313c2a-2f9b-5b7a-bf48-30b8a301c842.html
This is a pretty sweet idea, especially considering that here in Nebraska God knows we have enough cows and manure to power Omaha for a good year. That kinda sucks about how expensive it is, that really surprised me. But at least the numbers show that it pays itself off, so I'd say its well worth investing in
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of cycling the waste into usable material. They're not just reusing it for superficial purposes either. They're using it to sustain and maintain their livelihoods. I thought it was unfortunate that the upfront cost of this recycling process was so high that one of the biggest cattle producing states cannot afford it. Putting that much money upfront is frightening to farmers, but I hope more take the chance to get the big payoff.
ReplyDeleteSome ideas people think up just make me smile, and this is one of them. If the start up costs weren't so high and scaring off farmers, this could be a solid prospect here in Nebraska- I think we have plenty of cows!
ReplyDeleteThough it is quite expensive...what an idea! And to have that pay back in 5 years is pretty astounding. If we could get the larger ranchers to create a co-op of this operation and divide the cost into more reasonable prices for each farmer, I don't see why we couldn't implement this pretty soon. Neat idea!
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