In this recent effort to save the Earth, a new kind of bio energy is being developed deriving from cow manure.
Utility
PG&E Corp in California has been directed to supply 20% of renewable energy by 2010 .
The Vintage Dairy Biogas Project, the brainchild of dairyman, Mr. David Albers aims to provide natural gas for some 1,200 homes a day. He is also president of BoiEnergy Solutions, the company that is funding this project.
While people see the manure as just another pile, they saw it as an opportunity for farmers. When the cow manure decomposes, it produces methane which can be captured and treated. This is then regulated to produce renewable gas. This greenhouse gas is more potent than carbon dioxide and scientists concluded that controlling methane emissions from animals such as cows would be a major step in addressing climate change.
Manure are flushed into a large octagonal pit where it becomes 99% water and later pumped into a covered lagoon, passing through a screen that filters out large solids that eventually become the cows' bedding. The covered lagoon known as "digester" is nearly the size of five football fields. While it is lined with plastic to protect the ground water, the cover that is made from high-density polyethylene, is being held down at the edges by concrete. The digester then channels the gas to a small factory where it is scrubbed off hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The end product methane is then injected into PG&E's pipeline and shipped to a power plant in Northern California.
Albers says biogas creates opportunity for dairy farmers to make extra revenue while helping out the environment . Both BioEnergy Solutions and PG&E are actively assisting dairy farmers to reuse their manure allowing the methane to be released into air as gas for the greenhouse . Such project however are not applicable to all as their location may be too far away from the necessary gas transmission line.