CEDARVILLE - Some Illinois dairy farms are producing a whole lot more than milk these days, and Scheidairy Farms in Buckeye Township is a prime example.Anything organic? Seems to me there is some real potential in that.
The 650-head farm, which sells some 45,000 pounds of milk each day, also is producing electricity - from cow manure.
The family farmers, Doug and Patricia Scheider, installed a methane digester last
year and started generating electricity in July. The energy it generates powers
their entire 1,100-acre farm operation with about 140 kilowatts per hour.
"It's producing enough electricity to power 117 homes," said Jim Ritterbusch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service division.
[snip]
"If you can imagine it, the manure corkscrews through the digesters. We're picking up where the cow left off," said Melissa Dvorak, marketing manager for GHD Inc.
"We take all the waste - manure, parlor water and washdown water - and convert it," Dvorak said. The digester, in fact, can convert anything organic to methane, she said.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
City Water Light & Poop
Illinois really is on the alternative energy cutting edge. We have one of the world’s largest wind farm being built in McLean County and now we dung power in the northern part of the state. Think that’s a shitty idea, think again:
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Illinois is doing a lot of good new things. But we're also becoming a dumping ground for coal power plants that will send energy to other states. I know people are desperate to revive the Illinois coal industry but you have to have a lot of pretty damn good jobs to compensate for the hundreds of extra dollars families will be spending on asthma medication for their children each month.
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