Manure-Powered Generators On The Rise 444
Sunkist writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has a report on Marin County rancher Albert Straus that, after 25 years of work, began using a generator powered by manure. While this type of 'power' has been in use for a while, recent legislation has made it more widespread. From the article, 'The Straus Farms' covered-lagoon methane generator, powered by methane billowing off a covered pool of decomposing bovine waste, is expected to save the operation between $5,000 and $6,000 per month in energy costs.' Let's hear it for poop!"
Popular in India (Score:5, Informative)
Economics (Score:2, Informative)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/
Re:The inherited problem is still (Score:5, Informative)
Many forests around the world have been significantly depleted, but the myth of deforestation in the U.S. is just that, a myth. There hasn't been a significant decrease in plantlife except in very urban areas, like New York.
Also, on a world wide scale, much of the plantlife that handles the CO2 issue is in the ocean. I don't remember the number, but something like 70% of the CO2 converting plants live in the ocean. I think that's the bigger issue.
Useful links.... (Score:2, Informative)
http://dnr.metrokc.gov/dnrp/press/2003/0717methan
http://www.climatechangecentral.com/resources/c3v
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/11/11272001
http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/03/032502t_
Re:The inherited problem is still (Score:2, Informative)
The cows eat hay and grain which are seasonal/renewable resources?
http://www.eere.energy.gov/biopower/benefits/be
Re:The inherited problem is still (Score:4, Informative)
Much of it is in undesirable areas (mountains etc) or protected parks so it's pretty much safe.
Re:Great Economic News! (Score:4, Informative)
I know you're just trying to be funny, but I thought I'd point out there's a reason why this is being done for dairy cows instead of beef cattle. Dairy cows tend to shit in a barn while they're being milked. This creates a lot of waste in a small area, that we typically just hoss out the back. Of course, there's no reason you couldn't hoss it into a container, and then dump that somewhere else where it could be better used.
Re:Holy cow! (Score:1, 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.
Re:Holy cow! (Score:1, Informative)
There really isn't a CO2 increase. The carbon is almost entirely from plants which got it from the air in the first place. Anyway, old ways of getting rid of the stuff had most of the carbon going back into the air. It's not like dairy farms form carbon deposits.
Re:Sounds like a win-win (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry to disappoint some but the human stuff is at least in the USA very often used for methane production. Many municipal Sewerage Treament plants do this already. Decatur Alabama has done so for years and runs many city cars on it. Florence Alabama drilled their landfill and did same.
Referred to commonly as "biomass" power generation (Score:5, Informative)
Actually Kyoto friendly (Score:4, Informative)
On the contrary. First, it would cut HC4-emission, which is an even more effective greenhouse gas and listed in the Kyoto protocol. Second, it could reduce CO2 emissions, as the energy is produced locally and cuts the transport losses.
Fresh water needs too. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The inherited problem is still (Score:2, Informative)
If we cut down the last 3% of lower 48 states old growth and leave the less accessable parts of Alaska's timber alone is it any less of an environmental tragedy?
Re:inefficient usage (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Holy cow! (Score:3, Informative)
CO2, waste heat, and "digested" solids - which are still effective as fertilizer (though not as rich).
Is it considered "clean" energy?
Cleaner than oil-fired plants, but there is still the CO2 output.
Is used poop as good at fertilizing as new poop?
Depends on the remaining nutrient levels, but it is still usable, yes.
Would it work with human poop? Can I build a small version myself? Are their poop bylaws?
Yes, yes, and yes. There are rural communities in undeveloped countries that use methane produced by the community's waste for cooking and heating.
And most importantly, does it run Linux??
Linux is Open Source. I'm sure someone can port it...
Been done for decades in rural India (Score:2, Informative)
Feed lots are far from free range (Score:2, Informative)
But in feed lot operations all over the state there are a high density of cattle, where collection of the waste is not only economical it is probably essential.
Net Metering & The Interconnection Process (Score:4, Informative)
Well, it's actually a bit more complicated than all that. One of the major problems with building a new generator is getting that generator to play nice with the existing transmission/distribution grid. This business of connecting the generator with the grid is called "interconnection." It's not an easy thing to interconnect a generator, and hooking up new green power technologies is especially troublesome. (Wind is the most difficult, with solar being the easiest.)
The federal government has been working on creating new standardized rules for interconnection of small (read: green) generators, but it's an incredibly complicated process [ferc.gov] that's taking years to complete and isn't even done yet.
So, what does all this have to do with Net Metering, you ask? Well everything.
Net Metering is a state jurisdictional program (meaning each state has its own rules) that avoids the whole interconnection process. While you are still hooking up with the grid, the power flows involved in a Net Metering program are so small in comparison that the process is much quicker and much, much cheaper.
The deal is however, that you cannot export (meaning feed energy into the grid) more power than you consume over the course of the billing period (usually a month).
Take a photovoltaic system - during the day a well built system (and we're not talking people who are entirely off the grid here) may both supply the energy needs of your house and produce some extra energy. That energy is sent out to the grid. Your electric meter essentially runs backwards for that period of time. Then, at night, you resume taking energy from the grid to run your house. At that point your meter is running forward and your bill is increasing. Say over the course of a month you take 1000 kw of electricity of the grid at 8 cents / kw. Usually your bill would be $80. But, over the course of that same month say you pumped 100 kw of energy back into the grid (for a net consumption of 900 kw) - you would receive an $8 credit off of your bill.
Now take the example of Farmer Brown who wants to turn shit into gold (that's the phrase the brochures use - "shit into gold"). Say he (through whatever means) puts 10,000 kw (or 10 MW) onto the system - all of a sudden he likely no longer qualifies for a net metering program and has to take the trouble of actually entering into an interconnection agreement and conducting studies to make sure he's not going to fry some lineman somewhere further down the grid (or more likely, simply overload the local lines and fry a small portion of the grid). Sure, he'd love to use net metering - the utility is required to buy whatever power he produces, the price is set at the retail price for electricity, the price of interconnection is cheap, but he's no longer eligible. So he has to go through the interconnection process, find buyers to buy his energy at wholesale (either by himself, or more likely through what are called "Aggregators"), and he's basically in the energy business with all the regulations and resonsibilities that entails.
But don't feel too sorry for Farmer Brown -- turns out that one of the major expenses in running a dairy farm (who knew) is electricity! Most spend thousands and thousands of dollars on their electric bill every month - so to the extent they can offset even a portion of that through net metering, that there shit really is golden!
Re:Doubtful (Score:2, Informative)
Once the steers are being fattened for butcher, they will go on a mostly grain (cracked corn, occasionally soy or other protien sources (in hawaii they use the cores and waste flesh from Dole's cannery)) diet at the feed lot. This produces the thick white fat (grass fat is more yellow and tough).
Re:Doubtful (Score:3, Informative)
Cow hair and blood go into chicken feed as high protein suppliments. Often chicken feather meal goes into cow suppliments.
In the span of time appropriate for a reference to evolution, it's true to say we evolved with plants. Evidence indicates that humans evolved eating mostly plants
When we humans discovered husbandry, is about the time that we developed language, construction, civilization.
but it's still true that an acre of crops can feed more people than the same acre could feed if routed through a cow
The important fact here is that an acre of land too arid, rocky, steep, or otherwise too poor to farm feeds that cow. In reality, it's economics that determines the source of food for the cow. When cattle prices are up, and feed prices are up, that acre of ground can make two to five tons of hay (US $80 per ton) with very little input. That same land could make one ton of wheat (US $125 per ton), or one of maize. But those are dependant on the climate. However for the farmer, the wheat or maize probably has to be sold to a grain buyer, and they are notorious for doing their best to buy low and re-sell high. That is their business. If the farmer grew five tons of hay, he could sell that to a horseman, a cowman, store it, or feed it to owned livestock. A $80 ton of hay makes about 400 lb of $0.32 per lb cull cows, or $120. If fed to calves, it makes 400 lb of $1.00 feeders, or 400 lb of $0.60 fed cattle (ready for slaughter as finished cattle). If however the farmer turned livestock out on the grass, he saves $40 per ton on the processing of grass to hay (costs $2 to mow, rake, bale, harrow, stack each 100lb bale of hay). Of course you know there are 20 100 lb bales per ton. That was my experience when I was involved in agriculture. But it really comes down to economics. Many people complain about the subsidies to ag industry, but the players look at them as tax refunds. I look at them as vote buying, and believe there is vote buying in every district, every industry, every office.