The Bovine Bugle

Cow Power--large dairies generating their own electricity

In a recent Mark Trail comic strip in the Sunday funnies, Mark Trail was talking about methane production from cows and what some people think it is doing to the environment. There is some concern that methane from the ruminating cows is contributing to global warming. A few days later in the same paper, The Burlington Free Press, they ran an article about a large dairy in central Vermont that is going to take the methane produced by decomposing manure and use it to generate electricity.

The project on the 1,500-cow dairy farm will cost $1.2 million and will produce enough electricity to supply 300 homes for a year. The manure is placed in a large tank called a digester. As the manure breaks down, methane is produced and is piped to the generator. The methane is burned to power the generator and produce electricity. The electricity will enter the power grid right from the farm. The farm currently has an electric bill of $70,000 per year and hopes to take in two or three times that figure.

There are several benefits to this project. One, the project provides another generation source for electricity. Two, it provides another source of income for the farm. Three, removing the methane from the manure reduces the odor by 90 percent. And four, the cooked and dried manure can be sold as compost, used as bedding, or used as fertilizer on the farm. However, to make a project like this work, it takes a farm with at least 300 cows to generate enough methane gas. Needless to say, there won't be any organic farms here in Vermont (organic farms being small operations) putting in a system like this.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont