COW POWER: Michigan farmers turn manure into energy [View All]

[jpak]

http://www.freep.com/article/20081207/NEWS06/812070386/1007/news05

FENNVILLE -- The round metal building with its green dome looks only slightly out of place next to barns full of mooing cows. It takes up about a third of an acre, inconspicuous on the sprawling Scenic View Dairy farm, surrounded by dirt roads and acres of tasseled corn.

Inside, stinky manure from 3,500 cows and 9,400 pigs is being fermented and turned into electricity. What's left afterward is a rich, dark pile of soft biofiber that looks like mulch and smells only faintly of its origins. It goes back into the barns as bedding for the cows. Liquid that is leftover is sprayed as fertilizer onto nearby corn, soy, alfalfa and wheat crops.

Welcome to the miracle of anaerobic digestion, a natural bacterial process the farm is harnessing to produce alternative energy. Scenic View's anaerobic digesters have been operating for nearly two years -- the first in the country to produce not only electricity but also natural gas for sale.

The manure is pumped into large insulated tanks, where it's heated to the ideal temperature for tiny bacteria in it to work on producing methane gas.

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