Cow poop has never seemed so clean.
Last week, Green Mountain College, a small school located in the western part of Vermont, began running half of its electricity on methane gas extracted from cow manure.
Using manure from surrounding farms, this process produces only 40 percent carbon dioxide, a significantly less amount than the burning of fossil fuels.
However, Green Mountain was not alone on the development of manure power; more than 10 years ago, the University of New Hampshire began a similar procedure, paving the way for colleges like Green Mountain.
Many years back, UNH installed a large insulated silo, as well as a series of pumps and pipes to store, move, and heat cow manure in the university's dairy farm. Through a process of anaerobic digestion, methane was extracted from the manure.
Anaerobic digestion, a big word for a small process, simply means that the manure is mixed with water and heated to produce bacteria and gas. Pipes and pumps then siphon off the gas to be used later in furnaces or generators.
Heat and electricity, however, are not the only products of this procedure. Other usages include nutrient-rich fertilizer, as well as smell reduction for stored manure.
At UNH, the smell reduction was the main purpose for the manure processor. Although there were hopes and plans for a methane-gas generator, the university would not allow funding for it.
Upon hearing the news of the Vermont school's success, Professor Charles Schwab of UNH's animal and nutritional sciences department, expressed his "disappointment" in the lack of support at UNH for a process like this.
"It's excellent technology, and it makes perfect sense," stated Schwab. He went on to explain that UNH's 100-cow scale was too small at the time to produce enough manure to power a generator.
"500 cows, on the other hand, would pay for itself," Schwab claimed.
The Vermont plant has managed to herd nearly 1,500 cattle for the manure production process. The college stated that they have plans for 12 more farms to hop on by 2010.
Nevertheless, UNH's manure machine was shut down about 10 years ago due to cracks in the tank from clogged pumps. Although still intact, the tank and digester have not been used since.
Although it would produce only a small amount of UNH's energy, Schwab claimed that the department would like to start up the process of methane extraction once again. However, a new and more efficient digester would have to be purchased. Updated versions are nearly half the size and twice the speed as the one UNH currently owns.
When asked how much a new digester would cost, Schwab was uncertain, merely stating that it would be a "very large amount of money."
"It was exciting for us and the public," Schwab concluded. "We would definitely like to start this process again."
Meanwhile, UNH has recently begun a similar process using not manure, but landfill waste.
According to Jim Dombrosk, a member of the UNH Energy Department, plans are currently being finalized for a 12-mile pipeline connecting Turnkey Landfill in Rochester to a UNH plant that would extract methane from the waste in the landfill.
Like the gas produced from cow manure, landfill gas is less harmful to the environment than other fossil fuels. The gas produced at landfills only contain 50 percent carbon dioxide.
Dombrosk explained that when the garbage decomposes, a very large amount of methane is produced. After a vacuum is used to pull the gas out of the garbage, the methane is piped to campus. Once on campus, the gas is used for roughly 85 percent of all campus energy, including a new cogeneration plant.
Moreover, it is expected that in the first 10 years of the landfill operation, UNH will save nearly $30 million.
At the University of California at Los Angeles, there is currently a similar process of landfill energy used to produce power for plants on the campus. Nevertheless, Dombrusk described that it is "used nowhere near to the extent and quantity that UNH will."
The university's energy department hopes that the landfill energy will be used on campus by next winter.
The $39 million project is set to break ground next spring.
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