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Cows On Treadmills Produce Clean Power For Farms

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the mooves-you-to-tears dept.

separsons writes "William Taylor, a farmer in Northern Ireland, recently developed the Livestock Power Mill, a treadmill for cows. Taylor uses the device to generate clean, renewable power for his farm. Cows are locked into a pen on top of a non-powered, inclined belt. The cows' walking turns the belt, which spins a gearbox to drive a generator. One cow can produce about two kilowatts of electricity, enough energy to power four milking machines. It may seem like a kooky idea, but Taylor could be onto something: According to his calculations, if the world's 1.3 billion cattle used treadmills for eight hours a day, they could provide six percent of the world's power!"

4 of 640 comments (clear)

  1. Food? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do they need to eat more?

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    1. Re:Food? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >> Then we diesel truck the manure off and bury it in a landfill.

      Y'all ain't from around here, are ya?

    2. Re:Food? by mcmonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hint to mods: parent complaint is 'Funny' not 'Insightful'

      This is crazy: "We grow grain with petroleum based fertilizers, harvest it with diesel powered combines, diesel truck it over asphalt highways, and then feed it to cows on treadmills to make electricity."

      But is this any more sane: "We grow corn with petroleum based fertilizers, harvest it with diesel powered combines, diesel truck it over asphalt highways, and then feed it to yeast on treadmills to make ethanol to burn."

    3. Re:Food? by Rastl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No shit. I've never seen a person with an actual handicap or disability using those scooters. Every one of them had two arms and two legs and none of them were paraplegics or quadraplegics.

      Oh, so my mother who was in end stage cancer and unable to walk more than a dozen yards doesn't qualify? She had two arms and two legs.

      I agree that a fair number of the people using them might look like they would benefit from exercise but that doesn't mean that I have any right to judge whether or not they use a scooter. Ditto with the handicap cards. I'm not qualified to decide if they're handicapped or not so I don't bother worrying about it.