Then we need to ship a big one to the District of Columbia so that we can power the world.
It takes slightly more than three gallons of liquid cow manure to create one kilowatt-hour of electricity.
A lot of poop. A small amount of electricity. A big environmental boost to a dairy farmer.
A fledgling anaerobic manure digester is now running at roughly 80 percent capacity near Rexville in southwestern Skagit County. The plant produced its first power on Aug. 30 and will host Gov. Chris Gregoire at a ceremony next Monday.
The digester accepts the liquid manure in a big holding tank, where it gives off methane gas that is then burned to produce electricity.
It is the first or fourth of its kind in Washington – depending on how you catalog the device. Ferndale-based Andgar Corp. built all four.
I’m still trying to figure out why they didn’t build the first one in Olympia. With all the bullshit coming out of my state’s capital, we wouldn’t be needing to worry about the coming rate increase because of California’s “Green Energy†mandates.
Well, SOMEONE has to say it:
I don’t know about cow manure, but within the DC Beltway there’s enough bullshit to power the world for thousands of years – and it is a self-renewing fuel source. As such, I am all for this power source. We could export power to the rest of the world and bankrupt the Arabs.
I call bullshit. You can make a biomass-driven fuel cell use anything bio for fuel. All this was done 40 years ago, and if I had saved all those Popular Science back issues, I would be able to find it for you.
Now let’s look at the rest of this story. First, you have to build the digester. The building of that complex piece of equipment takes quite a bit of energy, not to mention the “carbon footprint”, which must be chalked up AGAINST the output of the plant. Then you have to prepare ground and install it, more energy/carbon expenditures. Finally, and this is the biggie, all that poo has to get from where the cow leaves it, into the digester, and that is an ONGOING expenditure of energy/carbon. Then, the digested poo has to be removed and dealt with, MORE ongoing expenditure of energy/carbon.
I’ll wager that when all those negatives are applied to the meager output of the plant, the installation produces either a NEGATIVE amount of energy or it’s output is so small as to be insignificant.
By all means, try this technology out, but to give it the aura of a planet-saving invention, bullshit.
What’s left to fertilize the fields and build topsoil?
Petrochemical fertilizers?
If I can end the bullshit out of DC and Olympia, I’ll take me large quantities of perto ferts.
I had to chuckle when I read that article… hosting Chris Gregoire, eh? Oh, that isn’t funny? Well then, add the sentence about “either the first or the fourth depending”, then ask yourself “how many does she need to count it a win?”