Turn Manure Into A Cash Cow, Of Sorts...

[struggle4progress]

(AP) MILWAUKEE ... Boyke is one of a growing number of farmers turning animal waste into energy, and he's spreading the word to others. He will be among those giving presentations at a conference Jan. 31 in Madison on ways farmers can turn manure into a cash cow of sorts.

A major topic will be anaerobic digesters, which use bacteria on manure to produce a gas primarily containing methane to power generators and produce electricity.

Boyke, who has 1,300 cows on his Vir-Clar Farm near Fond du Lac, said he gets two to three times the energy he needs with a digester, selling it all to Madison-based utility Alliant Energy and then buying back what he needs. He said the device produces enough power to serve 330 homes.

"I think we're just on the verge of something that is going to be big in the future," he said ...

http://wfrv.com/topstories/local_story_022133346.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Farmer finds a cash cow in his herd's droppings

BY DENNIS LIEN
Knight Ridder Newspapers

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Dennis Haubenschild's 900 dairy cows produce a lot of manure. But that manure, after going through a conversion process at his farm, also produces a lot of captured energy.

As part of a new greenhouse-gas trading system that rewards operations that reduce airborne emissions, Haubenschild is earning thousands of dollars a year from large companies and public institutions that can't cut pollution as much as they have promised. As the only Minnesota farmer doing this, he predicted other Midwestern farms will welcome the extra money stream and help blunt the effects of global warming.

"All businesses have to be sustainable,'' said Haubenschild, who runs the 54-year-old family farm with his two sons. "We have to lessen the footprint we are leaving on Mother Earth.''
Seven years ago, Haubenschild installed an anaerobic digester system, which converts methane-creating manure into electricity that is sold to a local utility. Methane is one of many greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere, contributing to a 1-degree increase in the Earth's average temperature over the past century.

For five years, Haubenschild had a contract with a utility that covered the digester's operating costs. But when it expired and he found another outlet that paid less, he looked to the Chicago Climate Exchange, North America's only voluntary, legally binding greenhouse-gas reduction and trading system ...

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/13686308.htm

[jobycom]

2. My dad had a worm farm, so I used to shovel crap for a living.

We fed the worms manure from a dairy farm nearby. You could hear them eating it, too. Sounded kind of like Rice Crispies in milk.

[struggle4progress]

3. I spent some time with cow manure and a shovel thirty years ago.

The dairy cows had personality but I don't miss cleaning up after them ...

[Dogmudgeon]

4. It's easy to find workers now

Just one sporeprint of the mushroom psilocybe cubensis and ten minutes on a Greatful Dead website, and you'll have yourself quite a herd of volunteers.

--p!
Are you sure Terrence McKenna got started this way, Dude?

[htuttle]

5. Unless they're free range cows, they just use a conveyor belt

With 1,300 cows, I'm betting the guy doesn't let them all run around all day, and they spend most of their time in a milking stall or feeding harness with a conveyor belt for the crap. At least that is how it was done 'back in the day' when I was growing up.

The sight of the manure conveyor throwing the stream of crap in a tall arc into the manure pile or truck was always quite a sight, yes siree...

BTW, the University of Wisconsin has several programs devoted to helping farmers design and install 'farm-generated' power sources of various types, including manure processors. They do a lot of outreach with energy seminars, cooperative design assistance, etc...at least when they're not too busy cloning sheep, that is.

[wordpix2]

6. why don't cities buy these digesters and use it on human waste

with 6 billion people on the planet, that's a LOT of crap-to-energy

[poopfuel]

7. fyi arcata california

http://www.learner.org/exhibits/garbage/sewagesolut.html

[Oerdin]

8. One of the more promising technologies

Is thermal depolymerization which turns organic wastes into oil, natural gas, water, and carbon black. The water is perfectly clean and ready to drink while the natural gas is used to provide up to 75% of the heating energy used to fire the process and the oil and carbon black are sold to help make up the other 25%. It is not a profitable enterprise by itself but it is almost break even. The plus side comes for places like California which have lots of sewage but little spare fresh water; thermal depolymerization can produce large quantities for fresh water more cheaply then even the most efficent desalinization plant plus you get a local source of heating oil.

That won't move us to a green house free economy but if we must choose imported oil or foreign oil then I will take domestic oil since it doesn't give money to fundimentalist Islamic regimes. We really should be building these plants in every city and every slaughter house in America. If we could get people to put organic waste into a different trash can from other solid wastes then this would be even better.