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Cow Manure --> Electricity

Posted by michael on from the cow-power dept.

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."

3 of 513 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Inefficient by Ledskof · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    the point was, the farmer was trying to make it sound like this is the solution to all of our future power problems; using cows as a our main resource.

    --
    This is my sig. The post is over.
  2. So if bullshit can be used for power... by Rai · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Dubyah really is the most powerful man in the world!

  3. Way of the future? by juushin · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    "This has to be the way of the future," Haubenschild said. "Industries are going to have to eventually be sustainable if we're to maintain our Earth as we see it today."

    I couldn't disagree more and am surely not alone in thinking that stewing up a gnarly crap sludge at 100 degree for days is a step forward for renewable energy.

    If you do a rough calculation of the efficiency of this energy scheme, it hovers around zero. This is for the obvious reason that the cow extracts around 98% of the "fuel" from a plant as it digests them. You would blow this crap cooker out of the water by growing plants on the same acreage and using their 1% quantum yield (of plants harvesting photons) to make a biological solar cell that could power something useful.

    Then there is also the downside of the smell - those poor neighbors that live downwind...