A couple weeks ago San Diego based DG Energy Solutions made a pitch for developing a renewable energy plant to be located at Fairhaven on the Samoa Penninsula. According to the article in the Eureka Reporter the company proposes to a ‘Trirenewable’ energy project. The three sources of energy would be wind from windmills, waves using a wave pump technology, and biomass which relies on burning vegetable matter such as wood chips to generate electricity.
I wonder if the company might considering adding a fourth source. Accorcing to this article a company in Dallas will be opening a plant to convert cow manure into energy. The plant will be located in, get this, Hereford, Texas which the company president calls the “Saudi Arabia of manure”. Given the number of dairy farms and political rhetoric around here, maybe Humboldt County could be considred the Turkmenistan of manure. Using manure to create electricty is a great way of solving two problems with one solution. I know farmers and ranchers who have a lot of animals have a problem getting rid of the byproduct. Shipping extra cow poop to Hereford is probably not feasible, but carting over to Fairhaven would be.
Technorati Tags: alternative energy
Entries (RSS)
In fact there was a study funded by the County that was done by HSU on energy production from manure. If I recall correctly, and I might not be, the conclusion was that our herds were too small and dispersed over pasture. The places where is works best are those large feedlot dairies where you have a bunch of cows concentrated in a small area. Anyway, I thought it would have been cool to have Ferndale be the world’s first fart powered town…
Darn. I thought I had a ’scoop’.
[...] Perhaps we should look even more closely at the proposal by DG Energy Solutions. Or anyone else, for that matter. According to the Earth Polichy Insitute, the cost of wind energy has dropped below that of conventional sources in certain areas of the U.S. From the article: During the fall of 2005, climbing natural gas prices pulled conventional electricity costs above those of wind-generated electricity, the source of most green power. This crossing of the cost lines in Austin and several other communities is a milestone in the U.S. shift to a renewable energy economy. [...]
[...] So what can we do here on the North Coast to help mitigate the climage change? With gas well over $3.00 per gallon already here, one obvious action would be to drive less. Walk more, bicycle more, plan better. We can also support efforts for the development of alternative energy sources. We can be more concientious about how we treat our waste. The Humboldt Recycler’s page by fellow blogger Fred Mangels provides a lot of resources for alternatives for just throwing things out. [...]
[...] In spite of the happy cow commercials apparently most of the manure production will come from massive dairies in the central valley where cows live in unhappy close quarters. The real happy cows here in Humboldt County that live in open fields just can’t mass enough manure to make such a plant viable here in the green happy north coast. At least that’s my understanding from comments on this post from a while back. Share This Post:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]