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"It's not so much green energy as brown power: a dairy farm in California said yesterday that it had found a new way to generate electricity for households — using a vat of liquid cow manure, 33ft deep and big enough to cover five football fields.
“When most people see a pile of manure, they see a pile of manure. We saw it as an opportunity for farmers, for utilities, and for California,” said David Albers, a partner in the Vintage Dairy, near Fresno, which has 5,000 cows and calls its new facility the Vintage Dairy Biogas project.
As cow manure decomposes it produces methane, a greenhouse gas more damaging than carbon dioxide. Scientists say that controlling methane emissions from animals such as cows will be hugely important in preventing climate change.
Methane can also be captured and treated to produce renewable gas, which can be used instead of coal to run electricity-generating plants — the excretion of a single cow can produce about 100 watts of power.
Although other farms in California already generate natural gas from cow dung, this marks the first time that it has actually been supplied via a pipeline to a utility company, PG&E Corp.
The pipeline will allow PG&E to generate power for about 1,200 homes a day in California's agricultural heartland. "
The power of cow dung can be electric - Times Online
“When most people see a pile of manure, they see a pile of manure. We saw it as an opportunity for farmers, for utilities, and for California,” said David Albers, a partner in the Vintage Dairy, near Fresno, which has 5,000 cows and calls its new facility the Vintage Dairy Biogas project.
As cow manure decomposes it produces methane, a greenhouse gas more damaging than carbon dioxide. Scientists say that controlling methane emissions from animals such as cows will be hugely important in preventing climate change.
Methane can also be captured and treated to produce renewable gas, which can be used instead of coal to run electricity-generating plants — the excretion of a single cow can produce about 100 watts of power.
Although other farms in California already generate natural gas from cow dung, this marks the first time that it has actually been supplied via a pipeline to a utility company, PG&E Corp.
The pipeline will allow PG&E to generate power for about 1,200 homes a day in California's agricultural heartland. "
The power of cow dung can be electric - Times Online