More farms are trying to turn cow manure into electricity. But some people say the government should not be paying for the process. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
More farms are trying to turn cow manure into electricity. But some people say the
government should not be paying for the process. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck
Quirmbach reports:
The federal government recently gave 14 million dollars to six Great Lakes states for renewable
energy and energy efficiency projects. Some of the projects are manure digesters, which capture
the methane from large amounts of animal waste and turn the gas into
electricity.
But Bill Weida of the New York-based Grace Factory Farm Project says the digesters do little to
reduce odor and nutrient problems at large farms. He also says the amount of electricity produced
is relatively small for the expense.
“We are subsidizing a program, which is going to produce energy at a higher cost than other
alternatives would, for example wind.”
Weida says the manure digester technology should be forced to stand on its own economically. But
the U.S. Agriculture Department says it’ll continue to consider digester proposals.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.