Another no-brainer?
So I was reading this article about alternative energy in Popular Mechanics today. This bit was particularly interesting:
To turn hay and silage into watts, Audet, a barrel-chested man with arms the size of curing hams, installed $1.3 million worth of infrastructure that includes a 117,000-cu.-ft. anaerobic digester that produces methane, and a pair of Caterpillar generators. On an average day, Audet’s cows excrete 35,000 gal. of manure, enough to generate 280 kilowatts of electricity that gets sold to Central Vermont Public Service (CVPS), a regional utility. In the past year, the arrangement has netted the farm $124,000.
At $124,000/year the $1.3 million infrastructure will pay itself off in a little over ten years. After which time it will start earning a lot of money. More farmers ought to be doing this, just seems like a very obvious thing to do. More farmers in Wisconsin ought to be doing this for sure. I’m sure there are ways to get financial assistance for the hefty upfront cost.
But you know who ought to really be doing this most of all? Every single metropolitan sewage treatment facility in this country should be doing this! How much poo does Milwaukee generate in a day? Probably way more than Mr. Audet’s cows. We could be powering our city or at least a good portion of it from our own crap. The power is within us, within our asses!
Hey Matt –
Thought you’d want to see this site. You’d prolly have a comment on it.
http://www.helpmybabylive.com/
— nate Jun 23, 01:19 AM #I LOVE IT! I heard of a similar thing people were doing to make biodegradable, fertilizer based, plant pots. This is way better.
— Dan Jun 24, 07:59 PM #hah, sounds like a great idea!
The only variable possibly not taken into account is what they are currently doing with the cow crap and how much it is worth for them without the added cost of infastructure.
To come up with the real benefit, you would have to subtract the current worth of the cow crap in it’s current use from the $124,000.
Also, assuming cow crap is currently being used as fertilizer, if all farmers did this, the cost of fertilizer would go through the roof making the cost of food higher. This in turn would possibly make the cost of growing corn higher which would make the cost of ethenal even higher.
I think we need to find a solution that doesn’t negatively affect the cost of our food.
Some added negative consequences to the consequences above might be the further development of chemical fertilizer to make up fo the lack of natural fertilizer. The chemical fertilizer then might have it’s own set of health consequences on the human population.
— Tim Jun 25, 09:50 AM #I agree with Tim on using cow crap for fertilizer, but currently human waste is not allowed to be used for fertilizer and it is just held and processed till it is no longer dangerous and then disposed of. Why not save all the energy that’s wasted on processing it, and use it for energy instead?
— Anne Jun 25, 10:59 AM #From Wikipedia
The third by-product is a liquid (methanogenic digestate) that is rich in nutrients and can be an excellent fertilizer dependent on the quality of the material being digested.
So anaerobic digestion doesn’t destroy the fertilizer potential of cow poop, probably just concentrates it by removing unnecessary elements.
— Matt Jun 25, 12:18 PM #I think this is a great ide—wait…curing hams?
— Joel Jun 25, 07:08 PM #