Cow Manure --> Electricity 519
jmtpi writes "ABCNews has a story about a dairy farm in Minnesota that uses its cow manure to generate enough electricity to power the farm plus 80 homes and create fertilizer. There's also a more detailed story."
This story... (Score:5, Funny)
technically does this shit hit the fan? (Score:3, Funny)
the shit hits the fan, eh?
and ecologically friendly PP SUVs would really be transporting a shitload of stuff...
(PP=poop propelled)
Re:technically does this shit hit the fan? (Score:3, Interesting)
The part I like best is that the CO2 produced is not only less of a greenhouse gas than the mathane, but since it comes from the grass and grain that the cows ate, it is completely renewable, and we can take it back out of the air by growing more grass and grain.
It would be interesting to see how much of my natural gas bill I could save by digesting lawn clippings, old newspapers, and other garbage I would normally have dumped in a landfill. By skipping the cow phase, I lose the milk, but I should get more methane per pound of grass.
The data here [dabney.com] seem to indicate that pig and chicken farmers would get twice the methane that the dairy farmer gets. And handling the waste from pig farms is a big problem that this may help solve.
More info here [energy.gov].
Re:This story... (Score:3, Funny)
I smell a winner! (Score:5, Funny)
*faints*
Re:I smell a winner! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I smell a winner! (Score:3, Funny)
Which just goes to prove... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Which just goes to prove... (Score:5, Funny)
If we could round up all the politicians in DC, we could power the world.
truimph the cow says... (Score:5, Funny)
FOR ME TO POOP ON!
When I was a kid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When I was a kid... (Score:2)
"Soylent green..is peeeeopullllllll!"
shit that's amazing... (Score:2, Funny)
Human waste (Score:2, Insightful)
I would imagine we get a lot less methane out of ours, but these guys seem to be making a fair bit.
Also does anyone know what kind of pollution levels these things create? It seems like it would be fairly clean but I'm not an expert on burning shit.
-Nex
Re:Human waste (Score:5, Informative)
It also works at landfills. Methane is extracted from the landfill, and used to turn generators. The electricity is fed into the power grid, and the power company pays the landfill operator (usually the county) for the juice. Here in Northern California, the power company (Pacific Graft & Extortion - AKA PG&E) is legally required to purchase the power.
-Ax
Re:Human waste (Score:2, Informative)
It never pays for the entire process, but it can help to offset costs.
In other news.... (Score:3, Funny)
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't that seem a little hi?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
That strikes me as more of a big hello.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
Methane wasted at many facilities (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine if human waste treatment were to start generating electricity. Your local water and sewage board could start PAYING you for the privilege of of disposing of your sewage.
Re:Methane wasted at many facilities (Score:2, Insightful)
Cuts costs a bit but doesn't generate a profit (good thing too, or it'd vanish into the city bueracracy thanks to some weird rules!)
Oh god... the joke just made itself... (Score:2, Funny)
Or is that Communist China?
Re:Methane wasted at many facilities (Score:5, Funny)
It's called Ebay
Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
If this is such a good idea, and so cost effective, why isn't it being done more places?
"In the USA we don't just waste our natural resources, we waste our waste, too!"
Re:Nothing new (Score:2)
One thing to note, though-- the "venting" of the gas is not good. It is a green-house gas. That's why they usually try and burn it in flares wherever there is a concentration.
Interesting thing about using biogas at feed lots is that it actually reduces the cow's environmental impact. If only they could capture the flatulent as well... imagine what the animal rights activists would say!
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a number of reasons why. As urban areas grow there is less space to spread the shit around. You have to put the manure somewhere. If you don't have alot of land readily available then you have to haul it off. So lack of open land is driving up the cost of manure disposal, making electrity generation a more cost effective option.
Between the cost of fuel going up and the cost of complying with EPA regulations drive the price of electricity up.
Wait about 10 years probably most dairys and landfills will be doing this.
would it be possible? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)
If they had to compete with a real power plant, they'd be better off flaring the gas off just like the real sewage plants do.
As a nation, we really are pretty efficient at generating electricity.
Biogas power generation around for decades. (Score:5, Informative)
In 1979, China had an estimated 7.2 million biogas plants, fueled primarily by pig manure.
In the same year, India had 80,000 of its own biogas plants fueled by the defecation of the sacred cow. (Holy Shit!)
They've even been doing this in the US for quite some time. Here is another article [riverdeep.net] that provides an excellent explanation of the process, costs, and capabilities of such a system.
Re:Biogas power generation around for decades. (Score:5, Interesting)
The method has been around for decades indeed, but it isn't economical to doing it on a large scale. But things are slowly changing, it seems, in the right direction.
a positive trend (Score:5, Insightful)
So this might not be the most technologically amazing invention, and it's clearly not going to solve the world's energy problems. But it is an inspiring example of how a few individuals can actually do something less destructive for the environment without being mandated to do so by government regulations.
At the risk of sounding trite, consider what you can do to have a less destructive impact on our planet, even if it doesn't involve thousands of gallons of shit a day.
Re:a positive trend (Score:3)
Indeed... here are some little things:
anyway, and I'm just a poor, young single Dad trying to make it. I'm sure others can add other creative, inexpensive ways to contribute.
-l
Re:a positive trend (Score:4, Informative)
Windows down in the car is great around town for saving fuel. On the highway the increased aerodynamic drag reduces fuel consumption to a degree comparable to running the a/c compressor. If you're already hauling around the a/c, you might as well be comfortable on the highway.
Re:a positive trend (Score:4, Funny)
Soo, you have a mobile home that goes 75 mph?
Re:a positive trend (Score:3, Informative)
I agree with the poster who talked aout telecommuting --- shortening your commute to work by living closer to your workplace, telecommuting, or taking public transportation also reduces energy consumption day by day.
More fun, less stuff!
Re:a positive trend (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck! Kids are a great excuse to "learn and do". Both of you benefit from it!
Re:a positive trend (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a telecommuter. My 3.5-year-old car has less than 6,000 miles on it, so I'm using less gasoline and producing a lot less pollution than most commuters.
We supposedly have all this excess bandwidth left over from the dotcom bubble, so I think more people should use it in this manner. Also, buying OPEC oil so we can gather together in big buildings to make nice targets for terrorists doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Nothing New (Score:2)
If the combustion processes is controlled correctly, there is little pollution generated. The biggest problem with either of these dirty fuels is "What impurities are in both of these that are not present in cleaner fuels that cannot be removed?"
veganism (Score:2)
Re:veganism (Score:3, Interesting)
Animals are one of the simplest ways to turn the energy of the sun into food. You're wanting to give up thousands of years of work on the part of your ancestors to make your 'moral' choice.
Go for it, if you want. Just don't expect the rest of us to follow.
Re:veganism (Score:3, Interesting)
*OK, the grass eaters did walk like us, but they didn't think or talk till they started eating meat (at first simply marrow and brains left by larger carnivores).
Re:veganism (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the same area of land, many more people can be fed by using it for growing crops rather than for raising animals. I'm all for harvesting energy from "this little ball of gas in the sky," but raising animals is certainly not a particularly efficient way of doing it.
In China since 1950s (Score:2)
Be a patriot! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Be a patriot! (Score:5, Funny)
Old idea (Score:2)
So i guess..... (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but a story like this is just too good to pass up.....
This leaves CO2 (Score:2, Interesting)
But of course I don't know shit about chemistry.. so I could easily be wrong.
Re:This leaves CO2 (Score:2)
Plankton in the oceans produce TONS more O2 than plants do.
Now... (Score:5, Funny)
How about hydrogen-generating microbes + garbage? (Score:5, Interesting)
SI would get cleaner air and jobs in a good local high-tech industry (we'd be HAPPY to import garbage
Just keep Tony Soprano's hands off it
Re:How about hydrogen-generating microbes + garbag (Score:2)
The real world (Score:3, Funny)
Indian civilization knows the value of manure. :) (Score:4, Funny)
They laughed at us when we told them that cows were holy. Guess, whose laughing now?!
Cow Zindabad, Cow Zindabad!
sri
Probably more common than you think (Score:5, Informative)
One project involved modified diesel engines that burned landfill gas to make electricity. The other involved piping landfill gas to an existing power plant to burn in the boiler.
In both cases these projects would not have been economically viable except for govt incentives, tax credits, and environmental regulations.
While it may sound appealling to use this free energy source, it is actually pretty expensive to make it all work. The electricity produced ends up costing more in the long run than regular old power from coal or natural gas.
The landfill gas is usually pretty nasty and it is difficult to keep things running. Everything corrodes quickly. These facilities also produce very little power, on the order of 10's of MW whereas a large coal unit is usually 500MW or more. Diverting your maintenance people to the little installation to keep it running is very inefficient. It is much better to keep them working on the large units.
Methodology (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyhow, I don't think burning biogas is a bad idea. It will have to be properly engineered and applied to worth a squat though.
Re:Methodology (Score:3, Interesting)
The main problem is that you usually don't get enough off gasing from even a large landfill to build a very large power plant. The economy of scale is very difficult to achieve.
We have gotten really good at burning fossil fuels and providing large quantities of energy very cheaply. It is difficult to compete. I would love to see this type of thing take off and I would definitely like to see things like solar energy develop more fully. Its just that it is very hard to beat the economics of fossil fuels. It will probably be that way until we start to run out which probably won't be in my lifetime.
Re:Methodology (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it's only cheap if you don't have to pay for the clean up, i.e. emissions in the case of coal or oil, or the use of a non renewable resource.
That unsustainable (some would say short sighted) use of resources can be "economic" has never really been in dispute. At least not in the short run. Witness deforrestation for example. Sicily was clear cut by the Romans, and hasn't really recovered in that respect since. That was great economy for the Romans, but doesn't do much good for the present inhabitants. In effect, the Romans took out a loan against future generations, that they have to pay back.
If coal and oil had to carry (fully) their cost, say including the cost of replacement of much of the energy infrastructure when they've run out, I gather you wouldn't even have to mention "global warming" for the balance to shift in favour of alternative solutions.
In India,this is not new.... (Score:5, Informative)
You can learn more about it here: BioGas in India [ganesha.co.uk]
This might not be a first (?) (Score:3, Informative)
I am not sure if using farm byproducts to produce electricity is new, since I have heard of similar ones before (in documentaries).
Please pardon my ignorance, if I have said something stupid above.
Thank you.
GrimReality
2003-03-09 23:55:59 UTC (2003-03-09 18:55:59 EST)
Manure to Electricty? (Score:3, Funny)
(Sorry, sorry... +1, Lame?)
Re:Hmmm burn coal? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmmm burn coal? (Score:3, Insightful)
With a proper plant with proper filters, I can't imagine that burning shit is going to be problem. Can't be anyworse than having lie on the ground.
Re:Hmmm burn coal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm burn trolls? (Score:5, Informative)
Because farms don't produce coal. Farms produce manure (as waste), and the manure produces methane, wich is a smelly pollutant.
What these farmers can do is turn that smelly waste into a profitable ressource.
coal?
It's just as bad for the environment
No, its much much worse for the environment to dig out buried carbon and release it into the atmosphere than to prevent the release of methane in the atmosphere.
I don't really want to smell the fumes of burning shit, thank you!
Yes, you should thank them, since they are saving you from having to smell those fumes by transforming the manure in a closed system and then burning the methane quite thoroughly. Methane then ends up as water vapor, CO2 and energy.
Wich is much better smelling than raw manure.
Now, had you read the article before trolling about coal, you'd have known all that.
Re:pollution? (Score:2, Interesting)
The manure is not burned, rather it is "cooked" at 100 degrees (C or F, dunno), and the methane is collected. Yes, methane. Natural gas, in other words. Not the cleanest stuff ever, but it's definitely better than coal.
Re:pollution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also bear in mind that most of that methane would end up in the atmophere if it wasn't burned and would be a whole lot worse, envirnmentally speaking. Generating electicity *and* helping to prevent polution. It is good to see something like this
Re:pollution? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:pollution? (Score:2, Insightful)
it gets heated up, not burned; no byproduct, and the power from the manure goes to keep it hot. So as long as they can grow food, they have power.
Re:pollution? (Score:5, Informative)
> lots of pollution, oh well earth has to end
> some day
No, this is BURNING the pollution. Methane is the pollution produced from rotting cow manure. Burning it reduces it to heat, water and carbon dioxide. Much less harmful to the environment.
Re:pollution? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this is a great way for these farmers to make some extra cash.
Re:pollution? (Score:5, Informative)
This results in anerobic decomposition, which produces methane. In additon to being a very effictive (bad) greenhouse gas, methane is smelly. Also, the resulting composte can have weeds and pathogens in it.
This results in carbon dioxide and high-quality compost. CO2 is a much less effective greenhouse gas than methane, so this is a pretty good choice. There was a recent
This is the most complicated method, but it's pretty rockin'. You end up wth the CO2 and high quality maure, but also with a bunch of electricity. Basically, it's a short-cycle renewable loop. Grass takes energy from the sun, CO2 from the air, and nutrients from the soil, and makes more grass. Cows eat the grass and make more cow, milk, and cow poop. You sell the milk, and turn the poop into CO2, soil nutrients, and electricity. Lather, rinse, repeat. The only significant input is sunlight, the only significants outputs are milk and electricity.
Re:pollution? (Score:3, Informative)
I believe that methane isn't the smelly part - it's the sulphur. I don't think that methane has any noticable smell at all. That's why they have to add scents to natural gas lines. If they didn't no one would notice a gas leak.
Re:pollution? (Score:5, Informative)
1. Cow eats grass.
2. Cow produces waste.
3. Bacteria degrades waste to methane.
4. Digester burns methane, produces CO2.
5. Grass absorbs CO2.
6. Go to 1.
Ideally, no more CO2 is produced than was in the grass anyway, so this process adds no more CO2 to the atmosphere. Furthermore, methane is very clean-burning, producing very little in the way of noxious by-products. In fact, since the grass produces energy from sunlight, you could think of this as a type of solar power!
Re:Inefficient (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Inefficient (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think cows enter into the "way of the future" in any fashion.
Even producing enough electricity to power their own farm and a few more homes doesn't make up for how inneficient it is compared to other solutions, namely ones that don't include drink milk.
Re:Inefficient (Score:2)
Unless you decide to legislate a vegetarian diet, people are going to continue to eat meat, drink milk, and wear wool.
Re:Inefficient (Score:2)
Exactly, which is why this is so great. Cowshit was just wasted, and now it's used for fuel. That's pretty damn efficient. This way, I get to have my steak and eat it too.
Re:Inefficient (Score:2)
I'm talking about longer term solution. This isn't one. The farmer is calling this the "way of the future".
It is! There are a great many dairy farms and ranches in this country, and only a few currently generating electricity from manure. It certainly isn't practical for each household to raise 10 head of cattle, but capturing the current output is very worthwhile. It will not consume any resources that aren't already being used.
Add to that, capture from landfill and we have a considerable net gain in available energy in any part of the country.
From a business standpoint, anything that can nearly double profitability can't be a bad thing. It may be just the thing to save a number of family farms.
As a general principle, I'd say capturing potentially valueable resources that are now wasted is certainly the way of the future.
Re:Inefficient (Score:2)
farmers are by far the MOST efficient people, and also some of the most environmentally minded people. (and btw, there aren't cow farmers... farming is plants, ranching is animals... This is a cow rancher!!!)
Re:Inefficient (Score:2)
I'm assuming you're from the U.S., and from the western half at that.
In the Eastern US, someone who grows cows for milk or for slaughter is usually called a "farmer". A "rancher" is primarily a mid-west or western term.
Re:Inefficient (Score:2)
Re:Inefficient (Score:2, Interesting)
The land usage isn't even that efficient. At some point this will be an issue, but currently I guess it isnt.
And did you even read the articles? Even the FARMERS are calling it a farm...
Re:Inefficient (Score:3, Informative)
if you have a dairy, it is not called a dairy ranch, it is called a dairy farm. BTW, the "dairy" itself is only the building where the cows are actually milked, not the whole farm.
Cows per home (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Inefficient (Score:2)
I doubt that the farmer envisioned billions of cows kept alive for the sole purpose of shitting. That would be stupid. I'm sure that he meant that lots of cattle owners could do this same thing.
Re:Inefficient (Score:2)
Actually, they could just close the energy loop from the plant matter to the methane a little tighter. Envision billions of vegans kept alive for the sole purpose of shitting....
Re:Inefficient (Score:5, Insightful)
You and a lot of other people on here are missing something important here: the farmer's prime goal is NOT to produce electricity. It is to produce milk. And to grow some crops on his 1000 acres. The electricity is just a convenient by-product of the cows, and of the process used to reduce the manure odor so that he doesn't bother his neighbors. I'm sure he has no interest in converting his whole farm to biodiesel production.
Maybe its time for the craftsman/farmer to move on and see what engineers can do.
Speaking as an engineer, we would have a bunch of cross-site meetings with various stakeholders, we would write up thousands of pages of feasibility documents, create innumerable Powerpoint presentations, hire a bunch of contractors and consultants since we don't have the required expertise, then the company would fire the whole lot of us and contract someone from India to do the job because it costs less. They would do roughly the same thing, and in the end the company would give up on the whole project and write it off as a business loss, and nothing substantive would have actually been done.
Re:Inefficient (Score:3, Interesting)
There are *tons* of cows in the US. According to this report [usda.gov], there were 96 million cows in the US in 1992, of which about 22.6% are dairy cows.
So this could be a pretty big deal (particularly if all cows could be used and not just dairy cows) but it would involve a big fraction of the industry getting involved.
When I toured San Onofre, they mentioned that (1) in California, the power companies must buy power from independent producers at the highest rate they are paying for any power, and (2) pig farmers were selling power to them at that time, and making some pretty good money off of it. That was around 1998-99.
You would think with power costs what they are now, every little farm would be looking into this. I hope they are.
I suspect they are not - or if they are they will find the risks too great.
It would be truely bizzare if we had to genetically breed cows to make them more "gas-y". I can just see it now: dairy cows, meat cows, gas cows...
The one image which keeps popping into my mind when such topics crop up is of starving people in other nations utterly bewindered that we could use all this fertile land...to generate electricity.
Of course the US alone already wastes enough food to save all the starving peoples of the world if we chose to do so - it is just a question of distribution.
Re:That's because you set up (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is supposed to be news? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Heard this joke...Cows with collection bags... (Score:2)
How is nuclear energy renewable? I haven't noticed any uranium popping up in my yard...
Re:Heard this joke...Cows with collection bags... (Score:2, Insightful)
Nuclear reactions occur with the fission of uranium-235, which is an extremely rare kind of uranium. However, reactors that are known as "fast-breeder reactors" take in the much more common version of uranium, uranium-238, and "breed" plutonium-239, which can also be fissioned.
There are a few problems with wind and solar power. Sure, they're cheap and they're clean, but a person has to keep in mind that the sun doesn't always shine, and the wind doesn't always blow. So to deal with this, you now need large batteries to store massive amounts of electricity to be used when solar and wind are unable to generate electricity.
Another inherent problem with solar and wind is the amount of space vs. the amount of energy produced. Both solar and wind energy need large amounts of space to create anywhere near the amount of energy that nuclear produces.
What about nuclear waste?
Spent nuclear fuel rods are solids, not liquids or gasses, so they don't "leak". In the past 35 years, there have been over 3,000 transports of nuclear waste across the country totalling 1.7 million miles. There have been 8 "accidents", but none of them ever resulted in any fatalities, environmental damage, etc. The containers that store nuclear waste are DESIGNED to be put through some serious abuse. They're made to sit through jet fuel at temperatures of over 1,200F for long periods of time. They make these things to withstand freefalls from 70 ft up, which is something like the equivalent of a 120mph head on crash.
Nuclear power rocks.
Nuclear energy is dangerous (Score:2, Insightful)
- Fast-breeders sound attractive, but with people like GWB still running the show I would not want to produce more Plutonium, it can be too easily used in nuclear bombs.
- Maybe it is time people should consider doing something about the other half of the equation: energy-consumption. I've replaced all my lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lights, bought an energy-efficient fridge and washing machine (got me a rebate from the power-company, too). I also switch off all equipment with small power adapters when not in use, they consume a small load 24/7 which adds up. I *halved* my electricity bill, and that is without *any* change in my lifestyle or level of comfort.
Another idiotic thing is cooking and heating homes electrically. Electricity is the highest form of power, and it is wasted on heating. Cooking on natural gas saves money and is much more efficient.
I am *not* a tree-hugger, I just want to see my kids being able to light and heat their homes when their grown-up, too.
Re:Heard this joke...Cows with collection bags... (Score:2)
How is this at the expense of reason? There is a HUGE amount of potential energy available in manure. As bacteria break it down, they will release the same methane anyway. Methane is a nastier greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, so you really might as well capture it and burn it to make use of the energy.
Throwing it into a pile to rot is wasting a huge resource, and making use of it doesn't particularly harm the environment if you burn it smartly.
Not using is is the unreasonable activity. It's wasteful! Why use more Uranium than you have to? The "lifetime cycle management system" you suggest is NOT an easy thing to create. Many smart people have been working on it for fifty years with no completely satisfactory solution in sight.
Anybody with a backhoe and a few sacks of cement can make a methane reclamation system.
Nothing for the conspiracy theorists to see here (Score:5, Informative)
Sheesh. Doesn't anybody read Mother Earth News anymore? Are we so focused on what might be coming out tomorrow that we've completely forgoten what we did yesterday?
Farmers have been doing this for over 100 years. Henry Ford promoted it as the ideal way to provide for our energy needs before WW1.
During WWII you could buy units on trailers to pull around behind your car, pile the shit in,a nd get a few miles of driving out of the resultant outgassing.
The only "conspiracy" here is that people no longer want to acknowledge that shit even exists and would rather go to war and die over a bit of oil than shovel a bit of their own shit.
Napoleon considered the most valuable men in his army the people who cleaned the latrines. They didn't *bury* the shit, they collected it for use.
Napleon's army made much of its own gunpowder while, ummmmmmmmmmm, "on the run," as it were.
Cows aren't the only biological device which can serve as a very efficient refinery of raw materials.
KFG
being done all over (Score:5, Insightful)
World wide there are literally hundreds of thousands of them (methane digesters using anareobic digestion), most of them being single family sized units where the collected gas is burned in small cookers and for lighting.
I built a digester in the mid 70's, was EXTEREMELY easy to make. I worked on a large dairy then, despite running the digester for all summer and collecting gas, just a small display size prootype unit, I could NOT get the farmer to drive over one mile to my cabin to look at it. His stock question was "why aren't THEY doing it if it is so good?" The gas collected was great, basically burned like propane. I tried other farmers over the years,I have yet to get one to take the plunge and actually do anything different, alwatys the same, it ain't in their propaganda magazines for their particular niche for farming. You can NOT get those guys to do anything practical until they get "permission" from the agribiz cartels, and right now, the agribiz cartels want the farmers to buy expensive petroleum and chemical products from them or their country club buddies. and the farmers WONDER why they keep going broke....and they TEACH going broke in the ag colleges, which is AMAZING to me they can suck young guys into doing that.
grumble....
At least this one dairy farmer in the article gets it, it's probably only one in a thousand or less that can actually think for themselves. Work hard, 7 days a week, YEP! They do, been there done that meself. think outside the box? Hardly ever happens, so petrified of their buddies at the co-op and the feed store thinking they are "enviros" or something near as I can tell.
Flash forward almost 30 years now, I get the same thing today, I work part time on a large poultry farm, besides methane digestion I have also asked why they don't use sprouted grains instead of the dismal dried up crap they call "feed" that barely keeps the cluckers clucking. SAME ANSWER, because "they" don't do it, this "they" guy who tells them what to do, it's not in the trade mags so "it doesn't work, it's hippie pie in the sky stuff enviro whackos".
I LAUGH every time I hear of a farmer going broke, because if they only thought just a smidgen outside the box and stepped back from being brainwashed by archerdanielsdowmonsantoexxon, they could make money, and easily. But no, they'll defend practices that they follow that produce for them a lower profit return than their grand daddys got in world war two. Sure, they can grow huger volumes of much crappier food off an acre, deal is, it IS crappier food and they hand over their cash to the big companies, then the bank takes their property eventually. Lead around by the nose don't even begin to describe it.
And I get the same thing from urban internet engineering "experts" who have constantly told me over the years my solar panels don't work, they "aren't practical". Funny, my electric bill is PAID OFF, I don't get a "monthly" bill with no idea what it will be if there's any political or middleman trading shenanigans. but, "solar isn't practical".
Phooie
The 21st century will belong to those who can think out of the box and stop making money for BIGCO, who work FOR THEMSELVES, and stop supporting those brane dead politicians and political parties who are in BIGCO's pockets.
Re:being done all over (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, were it me, a few years ago a literal goldmine in huge tanks hit the market as older gas tanks had to be pulled from underground and scrapped. You can get these cheap if you look around. large steel tanks, weldable. I'd start with something like that for the slurry tank. Maybe anyway. We got one here on the estate I caretake that got skids welded to it, added some flanges and now it's the diesel tank. Only about 1/10th even with the welding that a similar size "new" fuel tank would run. That's an example of out of the box thinking, and every situation is unique. If you got a dairy I will assume you got a gutter system in the freestall barn, so there's your initial collection point. Then it really depends where it's more cost effective, use it for heating, or use it for electrical generation? You probably already got a farm sized genny, most likely a PTO model, so there ya go, adapting that will require a donkey engine of some kind, probably something like a small 4 cylinder jap truck motor be the ticket. Need reduction gearing, they got the torgue if ya gear it right and you need to hit your sweet spot on the genny RPMs. That's something you'll need to tinker with. the propane carbs will work, they are in your area I'm sure. Storable pressure I'm of two minds, I like solid stuff, but the bladder concept is sound, maybe a army surplus fuel bladder or water buffalo might work. that's your collection and dispersal container for the gas, and it should stand up to the corrosion. Smaller scale they use the float method, the drum inside a drum with water as the seal, but you'll need "more". I wouldn't try to compress it unless you can get guidance from some pro propane guys on this, I think it's too dangerous and requires too much equipment and you'll lose efficiency, that's why I like a flexible bladder.
Commercial designs exist for various operations, and you certainly sound familiar enough with the processes to have found them. maybe find some guys who have done it, like these guys in the article, give ema call on yor nickle and some emails, see what they ran into and what they would do different now. Yes, probably expensive to start, but your alternative is? Keep doing what you are doing, slowly go broke, wait until federal price supports evaporate? You know they stopped and slowed down stockpiling. Well,maybe it'll get worse, maybe it won't, I'll admit I don't know, but tell ya, according to the TV talking heads everyone in the US should be multimillionaires by now if you believed them 4 or 5 years ago. Hmm, didn't happen, so maybe their ideas suck too. Just a thought.
Hey, as an aside, some guys with enough total windy days have found a couple/few of the commercial sized large wind gennys are actually pretty decent. Might be something there as well, 'farm" the wind blowing by, sell into the grid or maybe direct to as local manufacturing plant, after you use what you need? that would require VC but 'energy" is sexy now, might be possible.
It's funny but that was one of the few honest efforts that enron did, that division, their large wind turbines. GE bought them at pennies on the buck I think. google will find that info. There's even better designs out there now, a company outside cheyenne wyoming has one I've seen, forgotten the name now though.
Anyway, keep following their lead on the TV and in the industry rags, or do something different. That's the question. That's the question for all US ag. rural america really, because "rural ethnic cleansing" is a reality. Grain exporters are even seeing it, traditionally our number one ag export, that ratio is shrinking, foreign growers can beat the prices now, just like in manufacturing.
Cheap dollar will help a smidgen there, but hurt the rest of the economy so I don't see the FED or gov wanting that too much, not right now anyway.
I think it's short sighted,dangerous for our national security,I think that the US needs to be a diversified economy, full manufacturing, vertically, full agriculture, mining, energy development, etc. Deal is, we are being forced into competing when there's little more to be done to be "more efficient" following the approved models. If you are following a more restrictive model than the foreign trading nations follow, but they can use the same tech and reduced labor, makes it kinda hard to do. We can watch as family farms disappear within one more generation for all practical purposes, or go for it, do something different. manufacturing is poofing daily, I mean daily you can read yet another big company, layoffs, move to china.
Anyway, me, grew up working on farms locally but my father didn't own one, but that was it around where I lived. He drove into town and was a mainframe computer guy. Worked on them off and on into my 30's, now in my 50's I find myself back living rural, back to work on farms, they (farmers I see) are mostly older now, just a general impression,but nothing much has changed near as I can see. Locally I'm trying to push(casually, this is just fun for me really, and I would like to help people) sprouted grains as an alternative to milled feed, or at least partially. Basically I am not going to push it much longer, they read my lit, look at the batches I make for comparison,get impressed, then walk away saying "the co op" won't allow it " or "why aren't THEY doing it?" I had one guy just with a few stock critters interested, but he couldn't be bothered to follow up on it past just talk, and I sure as heck ain't gonna buy the gear and the grains and build it for him for free!
I can't answer those questions other than some "they" people are doing these things, but mostly like a lot of things in society, money controls what happens and what people are TOLD to do. Ha! I remember my dad being the electronics guy, we had the FIRST tv in the neighborhood. he was that "they" guy who was "doing it" when it came to something new. Someone has to be the "they" guy in every area, or it just don't get done. I have seen a LOT of complaining, but the nanosecond you SUGGEST something else, you can't hardly finish your sentence and they tell you it won't work, can't be done, impossible, etc, every negative you can think of. It's an immediate reaction, like preprogrammed. Plus the "us" versus "them" deal, rural america versus the "enviros". No one can see the other guys point of view, both sides make some points, but extremism on BOTH sides has been the norm forever. the globalist goons love it, it's the classic divide and conquer routine, get people faked out who their 'enemeies" are, get them to stop looking further at that man behind the curtain. Pretty funy if it wasn't so serious. Lately the "enviros" are winning, but if you look w-a-a-a-ay to the tippy top of that "movement" above the grassroots folks who just like the "idea" level, at the true stratosphere of it, you'll see guess who?
archerdanielmonsantoexxonbank bigco inc funding them.
Same guys making all their money off the true wealth creation that agriculture is and farmers are. Now gee, wonder why this is happening? Long range strategic planning to eventually OWN quadzillions of square miles of prime real estate? Combos of nutso laws passed by bribed politicos and economic manipulation? Anyway, I call that a clue. I also call it mass brainwashing because it's happened. That's an OPINION, and I do NOT care who's feelings get hurt, either side of the issue.
For what it's worth I feel the same away about manufacturing jobs, shipping them offshore only accomplished-what? Several million middle class guys with families out of work with little replacement jobs or income? Same with IT work now, you can see that starting to go buh bye. Jobs they can't ship offshore they ship in serf labor. That's a biggee for me, because I can SEE how fast a local area can change, and tell ya, it ain't looking good. The proof is in the auctions and bankruptcies and for sale signs and rising property taxes and governments locally going broke despite it, with a few local fatcats making all the cream. Same guys I see in the paper listed as the largest campaign donors to these various pol weasels. Amazing coincidence I guess you'd call it. And if THAT ain't enough nothing else I can say will offer much. Fug it. I'm buying my own land shortly,been looking for a couple months now for the best deals, something I should have done years ago but got trapped into urban living. Finally broke myself of that,girlfriend conming home telling me she couldn't fill up the tank on her car from dodging the crack heads and winos hanging around the quick store stations was about it for me, that and losing contracts steadily until I bidded myself so low I couldn't afford replacement tools anymore. Fug it. O I remember the stories my grandmas and great aunts told me about the depression, I REMEMBER them stories and they made an impression on me. they told about how all the people got tricked, then they lost their money, all that money moved upstram several levels. the goons are doing it again, it worked so good last time for them.
Our "leaders" insist on it, it's happening. So, moved back rural, got two jobs, both of which are phasing out soon, one ended today actually, but I'll go full self employed then, and here I stay. Small, cheap, but what profits I make will be mine, and I'll have food onsite, water, fuel, and etc. Won't be forced back into the approved mega cities so we can have "wildlands corridors and heritage sites", and sure as heck not going to any of this new global deal fascist camps they are talking about. That's another subject but it ties in. These globalists are some scary insane people, but oh well.
Small scale farming, a little of this, a little of that, I'll work on my own markets. Already talked to two of four local grocery stores, they'll take all the organic produce I can show up with in crates, no one will supply them even though they get asked for it by customers all the time. Another clue. And I WON'T botrrow money from the bank to do it. For the land, sure, got to live someplace, but for the rest, nope, I'll pay cash as you go or just not do it. I am king of the scroungers and cob jobbers, I take pride in few things but that is one of them, if I need a tool I'll make it just as fast as buying it. I just have that sort of philosphy. I detest the "system" because I think it's corrupt,our government is corrupt, the money/banking system is corrupt, the stock market is corrupt, and the fatcats at the top destroying the US middle class on purpose so they can become larger fatcats and create a two class master/serf modern technofuedalistic system is insane. Just check out their golden boy poster child nation red china. That's their little darling. Look CLOSE at the chinese model because that is what's coming here soon. They want that setup HERE and all these large corporations are going along with it, so that's clue #4.
And rather than just complain I offer solutions and do solutions myself, at the scale I can afford. That's the best I can do.
Hope you enjoyed the rant, and best of luck to you and if you detail whatever rig you build I'd like to see the specs. And we share something, when it gets late my fingers hurt, too. I want one of them startrek talking computers, much more nifty.
Re:No panaceum but.... (Score:2)