Cow power saves thousands for dairies

Some 9 million dairy cows produce 400 billion pounds of unmentionables (It ain’t milk!) each year in the US. What good can come of this?

The answer is, a great deal. A California firm called Valley Air Solutions has created seven large scale poop-to-methane facilities at dairy farms. They economically capture the methane generated by the cow manure, and pipe it directly to furnaces and boilers that heat barns and water tanks that would otherwise be powered by conventionally generated electricity.

The technology uses above-ground gas-tight covered anaerobic tanks to convert the cow droppings to methane. The process has a major side benefit, because once in the atmosphere, methane is 20 times as destructive as carbon dioxide in terms of climate change.

Straus Family Creamery, the first organic dairy west of the Mississippi, generates 300,000 kilowatt-hours per year with such a system, and saves $40,000 at current utility rates.

Source: www.worldbusiness.org