Well, energy has been quite a hot topic this week. I'm not going to wade into the debate over President Obama's drilling announcement. I'd rather not return to some of the nasty back and forth that's gone on over the past 48 hours. But I would like to shine a spotlight on an energy alternative that can sometimes get lost among the alternative options: biofuels.
And what better place to start than with cow shit:
It looks like our energy future is at least partly in the hands of cows, now that agribusiness giant Cargill has joined the manure-to-biogas gold rush. The company has just announced that its second biogas project is up and running at the Bettencourt Dairy B6 Farm in Jerome, Idaho. Using manure produced by the farm’s 6,000 cows, the biogas project is generating enough renewable methane to make electricity for about 1,100 typical homes. That’s just the latest installation in a trend that is seeing manure-to-biogas facilities popping up on farms across the United States like mushrooms after a rain.
Here's how it works:
The basic process for producing biogas from animal waste is called anaerobic digestion. It has been around for at least thirty years and is fairly common in municipal wastewater treatment plants (yes we count as animals). The process involves enclosing manure in hermetically sealed chambers called digesters, where bacteria break down organic matter. It’s the same thing that happens in nature only it happens in a tightly controlled environment, resulting in a far more quick and efficient process. The end result is methane gas, which can be burned in generators to create electricity. New York State is aggressively promoting biogas technology as a money saver for small dairy farms; it provides renewable electricity to run equipment at the farm, it can produce high-value fertilizer for use on site or for sale off site, and it virtually eliminates the need to pay for off site manure disposal.
The EPA has also pushed this technology as a way for farms to dispose of harmful waste, and as a way to curb greenhouse emissions.
A company in Colorado has discovered a way to use solar energy to create gas.
Here's a collection of biofuel stories. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see a particularly interesting story: a company in South Carolina that makes fuel from chicken fat.
Some Georgia residents (yay!) will soon be getting their energy from a landfill:
The agreement will provide Georgia Power with 100 percent of the renewable energy annually from Waste Management's 6.4 megawatt facility in Savannah, Georgia, as well as the associated renewable energy credits. One megawatt is enough energy to supply approximately 250 Georgia residences...
Landfill gas is produced when microorganisms break down organic material in the landfill. The resulting gas is comprised of approximately 50-60 percent methane. Waste Management collects methane and uses it to fuel on-site engines or turbines, generating electricity to power surrounding homes and neighborhoods.
I wanted to re-post a link to a story I wrote a diary on about a month and a half ago: the Pentagon has made significant strides in developing algae based fuel.
In a related story, the Air Force made history this week:
The first flight by an aircraft in which all of its engines were powered by a mix of biofuel and conventional jet fuel has been completed by the U.S. Air Force.
The U.S. Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II took a 90-minute flight in which its engines were filled with a 50-50 blend of conventional fuel and camelina-based jet fuel.
Camelina is the plant of choice for the Defense department because it does not compete with food crops and has been proven to reduce carbon emissions by 80%. The crop can be grown domestically, is drought tolerant, can be grown on marginal land, is a superb rotation crop for wheat, and requires less fertilizer and herbicides than other biofuel feedstocks.
But Camelina is not the only option. GM & the DOE are researching jatropha:
(GM) today announced a five-year partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help develop the potential of the jatropha plant as a sustainable biofuel energy crop. Traditionally considered a weed, jatropha plants produce an oil that can be refined into biodiesel.
The goal of the project is to demonstrate that jatropha can produce significant quantities of oil for conversion to biodiesel and to develop new varieties of the plant that have high yields, can withstand frost, and grow in temperate climates such as the United States. The drought-resistant, non-edible plant can be grown commercially with minimal care on marginal land.
Toyota also announced a program to research jatropha. Why this plant? Well, jatropha curcas seeds are 30-40% oil. One acre of Jatropha can produce 300 gallons of oil per year if irrigated.
Jatropha curcas seeds aren’t a food source, so they won't result in higher food prices that might impact the poor. In fact, eating a jatropha curcas seed will clean out your system, so to speak. Maybe we should give them to the cows from the first story.
Jatropha curcas is very hardy and can survive frosts, droughts, and poor soils. And, a mature jatropha curcas crop is a cash cow. Poor farmers can independently plant and maintain 10-15 acres of jatropha curcas, which can serve as a long term source of revenue for some of the world’s poorest people.
There is another plant that might one day be used as fuel: tobacco. It would certainly beat its current use.