methane production has to happen in an area that doesnt already have enabling ordinaces on the very subject. Back East, weve got ordinances for everything. Even though Pa has less people than it did 30 years ago, we enforce the hell out of everything so that even me, a dumass farmer, has to produce
nutrient management plans (for the uninitites :nutrient management" is the govt telling me how to handle manure)
WELL EVERYBODY STOP MOVIN OUT TO THE GODDAM COUNTRY. Gimme a rope.
People moving into the goddam country is a prime motivator for anaerobic digestion installations in the midwest -- and probably out west, too. Containing the crap-rotting process greatly reduces the amount of odor that escapes. It'd be cool if the energy production potential was the main thing, but for a few dairies (there's only a handful in WI/MN/IL doing it at the moment, though it's starting to balloon), it's mainly about minimizing complaints from the encroaching yuppies. Aw, well.
Was dismayed to find out that the Sierra Club has come out against the application, cuz it pollutes. Well, duh! So does coal, which is how most of our juice out here is generated. Especially if they're going to oppose wind development because of a couple of birds per spinner per year. Sheesh...
(Dammit if being surrounded by dairy farmers isn't starting to have an effect on me...)
I don't think it's about odoriferousness in the Marin guy's case, and - if you look at the rest of that little cow thread, it's more about Humboldt being the organic dairyland. Sad to say that is recently challenged, as I understand it and my understanding is I admit superficial, from some of the people presently raising cattle organically/whatever needing to make more money and planting questionable corn crops, and so on, thus threatening the organ-icity of the area. I gather Humboldt cty has been one of the key producers of organic milk for big name organic brands.
Again, my knowledge is skimming.
Let me recommend our local North Coast Journal for some great articles on this and other interesting and asphyxiating subjects over time, available online.
edit to say there aren't that many yups and pups in the Ferndale/Eureka/Arcata region yet, dairy farm antagonists or not. Well, it must seem so, but the population is still quite small as a whole.
farmerman wrote:
Littlek-Im not familiar with Greg Bears Darwins Radio. Is this a evolution joke I can use??? Its getting kinda weird over on the evo threads
It's a book about a giant leap in human evolution with it's roots in the junk dna.
Dog and osso. Weve created a technology for anaerobic digestion , which I support. Also theres a aerobic digestion which makes compost quickly. Theres a huge market for compost and soil amendments.
HOWEVER, here in Pa, we have already made ordinances that ban such technologies in agriculture zones . So the farmer is strapped with another x bucks a ton cost for manure handling because hed cant spread it on the fields (ground water Nitrate pollution when overdone) and we cant compost or methano genesis it.
Im not a happy camper about this entire subject. Its like some paternalistic government has decided to setr farms aside as a "quaint" eye candy and not let the farmer avail himself of new tech to help his business. Thats the way it is in Pa /Md/NJ but not Delaware
That's really a damn shame. There aren't many opportunities for ag to improve the bottom line and be eco-friendly.
Upstate New York appears to be pretty hospitable to the technology -- the zoo in Syracuse is even thinking about using their elephant crap for biogas. Mebbe you could build a pipeline...
The University of MO was doing work on manure to energy source when I was there 20+ years ago. I'm surprised they haven't perfected it by now. The class I took on Energy explained how it was supposed to work and it made sense then.
Wish it was applicable in real life. I could run the house off Bear.
It's mainly a problem of scale and incentives. For a v. large operation (like the one your toilet flushes to), it's very economically feasible. Less so for a small farm, especially when electricity can be produced by burning cheap coal, like we have in the U.S. In Germany, electricity is a lot more expensive, and there are hundreds of farms turning poo into electricity, and hundreds more getting systems online. Course, the German gov't subsidizes the things, which helps.
It's catching on here, too. The biggest problem seems to be getting hydrogen sulfide out of the gas so it doesn't screw up the engine-generator set (and any other piece of metal it comes in contact with).
I gather, then, that there are more than one type, and that fibroelastic is just the first of many descriptives...
a certain group of reptiles have a "bacula" bone.Looks a hell of a lot like a danforth anchorthat sticks out when the penis is erect Weve used the bacula bones symmetry to date turtle evolution (Not me mind you, its the larger "we" as in my colleagues. Id be laughing too hard to get any work done)
