Vermonters, Get Your Cow Power

[jpak]

http://www.renewableaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=50314

Seven-hundred St. Albans cows will make more than milk today--they'll make electricity.

The Dave and Cathy Montagne Farm will become the latest to join the CVPS Cow Power program today, generating electricity from cow manure and helping to solve numerous environmental challenges in the process. They have the capacity to handle manure from up to 1,200 cows.

The farm produces over 15 million pounds of milk a year, and is expected to produce 1.4 million kilowatt-hours (KWh) of electricity a year.

To create energy, manure and other agricultural waste are held in a sealed concrete tank at the same temperature as a cow's stomach, 101 degrees. Bacteria digest the volatile components, creating methane and killing pathogens and weed seeds. The methane, which is roughly 20 times more harmful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere, fuels an engine/generator.

<more>

[monktonman]

1. ...held in sealed concrete tank.

I like that.
Less stinky cow smells.
It gets so bad around here in the spring its hard to breath sometimes.

[kestrel91316]

2. And let's not forget, the sludge that remains after methane production

peters out is GOOD, FERTILE "swamp muck", free of pathogens and weed seeds.

This is a big win-win for everybody and should be SOP at all dairy farms and pig farms and feedlots. And human sewage treatment plants, too.

http://www.lasewers.org/treatment_plants/hyperion/index.htm
Our Hyperion Treatment Plant has been producing biogas from human waste for over 50 years. One of the few things about LA that REALLY makes me proud, lol.

[varun]

3. This technique has been tried in Indian villages since 80s.

They pump the "Biogas" (mostly methane)into homes and its used for cooking.

India has more cattle than any other country in the world, so it makes sense.