Dairy Farmers to save the planet

just read in todays paper that Tom Vilsack announced in Copenhagen Tues. that dairy farmers have agreed to reduce methane emissions 25% by 2020 through installations of methane digesters. This must mean that they have also come up with a plan to save the dairy farms because there will be no methane to digest without the cows.

There's a few local dairies firing boilers and one firing a gas turbine making power with their methane. With power prices how they are probably more money in that than milk.

That's the idea, don't ya know. When the cows are gone so will all their rectal gas that some idiots claim contributes to global warming.

If there really is any warming, it's caused by all the hot air and bull sh!t from politicians around the world.

I can see the digester working on a good size farm but,,,,,,, that will be another maintance item on the farm to take care of. I am just courious as to how much maintance is required to operate a digester and power plant. Nothing is simple when the protectors of the world want to help out the poor little happy farmer.

dairy farmers have agreed or have they been volunteered? It is ridiculus. The whole global warming/ climate change is something that if even was factual is beyond our control. Let the dairy farmers get the $30 they desreve and let the fricken crack pots that come up with this pay $15 a gallon for their milk and $7 for thier damn dilly bars. This country is being destroyed by this darn administration and the current majority in congress. "Change" has become a new word for "Destroy" I gotta stop before I get to venting

Those methane digesters are about as efficient as those wind power generators or less.

By the time they produce enough to pay for construction they need to be rebuild.

This country needs more fossil fuel or nuclear power plants.

We are growing faster than we are building new power plants.

Gary

Geez,the things that those wacky dairy farmers have agreed to since I sold my cows! Glad I got rid of'em. I'd have never agreed to that!

there have been a few digesters in this area. most of the farmers that have (had) them say they spend about as much time working on them as they do using them. i won't have enough cows (130 milking) to make a digester feasible. so i guess i'll continue to be part of the non-existant problem.

Decades ago they developed methane digesters for the poor people in India. Among other things, they were fairly easy to build and maintain. It sounds like a really wonderful idea, but......

By the time the regulatory alphabet soup which is the federal bureaucracy gets done with it, not too mention the various states and quite a few counties, with the help of big business which is more than willing to make a fast buck on someone else's regulatory burden, it won't be simple, cheap, easy to maintain or pleasant. And it will probably cost $10 to produce $1 of electricity, or whatever they're trying to do.

Last week my kids watched the old movie "Johnny Tremaine". Our ancestors rebelled over far less government than we currently have and even less than they are going to ram down our throats now.

Christopher

I kind of wonder that happened to the other big scare, i.e. USA farmers spreading manure above ground. Europeans tend to inject it underground (last I read) and there were legislators pushing to mandate it in the USA. Obviously never happened.

I don"t get it, the same global warming whackos that fight every effort to develop new natural gas fields in the USA that could bring manufacturing and prosperity back to the heartland want Dairy farmers to produce methane in the most inefficient and expensive method ever devised. The world wide manufacturing business model for this century will be affordable energy, not cheap labor, cheap labor is only cheap if all other inputs are equal. No workers in the world can match Americans in production or quality. The USA has the gas, massive amounts in many states and at least some in every state, we have the technology that would allow this gas to be produced at a price to the end user that no industrialized nation in the world could match. Not to mention the millions of new jobs that a sustainable natural gas development program would create in exploration and development and all that goes with it. Add in the National security considerations and it is arguably treasonous for the congress to continue to ham string the domestic energy industry.

(quoted from post at 09:53:31 12/17/09) That's the idea, don't ya know. When the cows are gone so will all their rectal gas that some idiots claim contributes to global warming.

If there really is any warming, it's caused by all the hot air and bull sh!t from politicians around the world.

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ure is going to take a lot of hose & more maintenance to keep all those hoses plugged into both ends of the cows & free flowing! Rekon Al will hold the rear hoses in place for ya?

The local Dairy is putting in a methane powered electric plant that will run some 10,000 or more homes.
But what I like best is that it will get rid of 90 percent of the awful smell. Now that's progress.
Walt

Here in Iowa when you get over a certain amount of livestock per farm unit you ARE required to put it under ground.

If it freezes up before injecting then a permit is required to spread over the top.

It is regulated by the Iowa DNR.

Gary

Interesting. Here in New York, there are no manure injection mandates. But, they've closed two big farms in my area claiming manure spreading caused local water pollution. Then, some 10 years later, it was decided that it wasn't the farms that caused that pollution after all. We had one big farm that tried to build a manure lagoon system with methane capture, but that farm got shut down also.

Well Exxon just bought that shale gas recovery company so I bet there wont be any more "cheap"natural gas.I could be wrong too.

Its hard to say who it is thats against drilling and natural gas and energy.These big money crooks just use people like college students to run their mouth about something.I would like to know since when did the government listen to the people on this stuff anyway?The people raising he11 did not stop the Vietnam war and it didnt stop anything else.Big money wants to kill us.They want to stir up a fight against everybody.So by blaming it on who you perceive to be your enemy,you are falling into the trap.Your fellow man wants cheap energy as much as you do,probably more.College big mouths are ignorant and misled by communists who are funded by big money.Big money wants to get rid of you.Be on the American side,not the fooled side.

The ones around here are because the liquid manure lagoons are required to be covered in some jurisdictions. They just float a rubber cover on them. The methane bubbles the cover up and if they don't collect it leaks out.

The boilers just suck on the methane pipe. The gas turbine I hear isn't quite sorted out as the methane has a lot of water in it.

Its pretty easy to say that 95% of the congressional nnalert plus the POTUS are against domestic drilling and production because they don't make any bones about it. I don't know the reason they are against it because they are all major consumers of energy and they will not continue to be reelected, which is all they really care about , unless people have jobs and can afford to pay their light bills and heat their homes. Mostly, they are arrogant beyond belief and want to tell everybody else what to do and how to live.

Actually big oil is opposed to drilling.The only oil they are concerned with right now is in Saudi Arabia because its easier to get than oil in the United States.Also big oil wants us to buy this high priced Canadian oil thats squeezed out of sand.So big money is against drilling.Who know what a politician will do.They will suck eggs.I guarantee if you replace a nnalert with a nnalert it wont improve anything.It will more than likely get worse.

My BIL worked for oil companies in the 1970s.He said they went all over the place and drilled wells in the United States,then pumped enough out to pay for the drilling,then capped the well.The whole imported oil thing is a scam.We have a lot of oil.Maybe not as much as Russia,but a lot.Also if we wanted to get serious about it we could make about 5 times more ethanol.

The more you look the more you find that big money people scamming us is what the problem is.Politicians are just scum slithering around on top of the cess pool.nnalert especially,all of them are crooks.

Walter, can you post a link to a story about that dairy, or the name and I"ll Google it. Thanks-Dave

Wisconsin has a digestor project in the works- a community sort of deal about 30 miles north of Madison. Government partnership in building it and local farmers supposed to use it for manure processing, gas collected for heat and electrical generation. Madison has about 8 new sewer gas generators last couple year working with landfill gas to make some electricity. Part of this push for renewable gas powered electricity is to keep Dane county from being declared a high pollution area like S E Wisconsin around Millwaukee and having to inspect cars and the coal fired plants in City of Madison. Old style Indian and Chinese methane generators were simple and good for local use, better than raw sewage spread. Key points were local use of gas and treatment of the manure/sewage that was required anyway for health reasons. Some of the media people must think the plants are like the Mad Max/Thunderdome pig power plants- theoreticly possible by unlikely right now. Dairy farm methane generator units started as covered lagoons that tapped the gas to heat water required to flush and clean the milking equipment. Some proposals for generating farm electricity for use by town 10 to 50 miles away is a little expensive- but might interest a politician looking for federal grant money to help local economy in building it for a couple years. See what Amish do- they seem to be going green more than Al Gore. RN

Gary, Have they figured out yet how to get rid of spent nuclear fuel? I remember reading about a clean-up of the place in Hannford Oregon where they used to put it. I don't know if there is a permanent solution to that yet, let alone a price tag

Rickreall Dairy in Rickreall, OR
Walt

Read where the California dairy farmers have sent millions of milking cows to be cutter and canners. Going broke everyday. Read one farm after milking the 1550 heard loaded then out after loosing millions trying to stay in buz.

One farm I know of for sure in our area has a permit for an open earth pit. It used to be all concrete, but then the walls collapsed. They had a company come in a fish the large chunks out with a crane, and then at the same time they dug it out bigger on 2 sides with a permit from the DNR. Apparantly they're also a part of a study, or were at one time, on how well our red clay holds such waste.

Keep in mind that the pit, where it was dug out, is just stictly excavation. No barriers or any prep work was done to prevent seepage. Our clay here is pretty good at holding it's siht together apparantly. There are a good number of larger farmers who inject it right away, and in all reality it does make sense in some aplications. There are also many more large dairies that haul liquid on their hayfields as soon as the crop is off, and you can bet that never gets incorporated.

Also, whenever a new home is built or an older septic tank goes bad, the homeowner has 2 options.

1: Install a holding tank and have it pumped all the time.

2: Install a mound system.

I'm sure there are more places like this, as it's just a sign of the times.

Our house is grandfathered in and has had a septic put in about as late as it could have been, from my understanding. God help me if (when) it goes bad....

Donovan from Wisconsin

T-40 -- The worlds largest oil companies are drilling in the US Gulf of Mexico and spending plenty of money doing it. There is a deepwater drilling boom that started roughly 10 years ago and is still going strong. I am not saying that Exxon and Chevron and all the rest are run by Mother Theresa, I'm saying that the people who do run these companies want to be able to operate their business and make a profit, pretty simple. No US oil company or foreign oil companies operate in Saudi Arabia, only one player there, Saudi Aramco, most Saudi oil goes to the far east. Wells in the USA do get capped when prices are low mainly ''stripper'' wells, say a well that makes 2 bbls per day and the electricity or diesel fuel needed to pump the 2 bbls costs more than the 2 bbls is worth. These same wells would be put back in production when prices go up. There are thousands of these type wells across the United States. Economics 101. I would really like to know how you came to the conclusion that big oil was against drilling in the USA when they spend millions lobbying congress every year trying to drill.

If your system goes bad... you prepare by day and work by halogen... quickly.
It's the same way here.
Luckily, out here, not much is said unless you have a hate going with some busy body squealer.

We were also considering our manure storage options last summer. Had an engineer here looking... Concrete pits are the big rage from the 'experts'. Those require considerable investigative work and engineering, environmental assessments, etc. All this crap if you want to get some assistance from the government on the costs.
His suggestion.... (pointing) says, "Take that f*****g dozer over there, dig a hole 12 feet deep. Pack the material into the berm... and you have a lagoon."
I asked about a liner...
He askes "what do you need a liner for?"
I remarked about a layer of sand... to which he replied... "it'll plug in a few days".
Don't apply for permits. Just shut your face and dig the hole was the moral of the story... If anyones asks... it was always there.

While I'm sure there are places where this might not be a good idea, the 200 feet of fireclay we have under us does tend to make for a very impermeable layer.


Rod

With where my parent's place is, it's about impossible to get away with anything.

My parent's house was built after septics were banned without a mound, so a "holding tank" was installed, but then the guy knocked a hole in it near the top and hooked into the same tile that the old farm house was on, as well as the milkhouse. It all ran down to the creek. The county has been getting tighter and tighter the last few years ot make sure those who have holding tanks actually are having them pumped, and they're not "customised" like my parents tank was for all those years.

Basically they were busted. My dad dug down and was going to try to disconnect it and patch the hole, but the concrete tank was deteriorated so bad, it just kept crumbling away. Had to have it replaced, and a guy from the county had to be there the whole time to watch that it was done right.

They originally told us that it had to be so many feet from the driveway or we would have to make an acess to it. Where it was, was too far away from the farm driveway. Dad wanted to extend the area where the truck was parked, which would have satisfied them. Mom and I put our feet down though, because if we would have done that, it would have gone right over where we've buried our last 2 dogs. If we would have dug down 1st, we probably would have hit their bones and I just can't bring myself to disturb any grave, even of a beloved pet. The other option was to rip out the lilac and go next to it. Again Mom put her foot down.

Then they wanted us to moev the tank about 50 feet so it would be near the driveway. After enough fighting and opposition, Dad was able to keep the tank in the same place, and not have to extend the driveway.

The next year the old steel septic on the farm house went bad. The top caved in and again it was way too far gone to be able to do anything about. Had 2 plastic tanks installed on that house, and instead of trying to go between that house and my parents (about 20 feet apart) and again ripping out a lilac and magnolia bush Mom got for mothers day quite a few years ago, and go through he flower bed, we put those tanks in the front yard and called it good enough. Drilled a hole through the stone foundation and had the sewer pipe plumbed the other way in the house.

Now my brother is pretty nervous about his septic, as his is the only one left by us now. His is grandfathered in and is working good, but in all reality, it's probably only a matter of time. That one you can see a green line in the feild during the summer where the drain tile runs straight north. Apparantly the tile is supposed to make a jog to the east then to connect to the ditch that's only about 100 feet over. Right about there is a wet hole in the feild though, and we think the tile might have been crushed a few years ago when they were running city sewer/water along the hwy. They shouldn't have been anyway near the line, but they were running quite a ways into our fields like they owned it.

That's a whole nother story.

Donovan from Wisconsin

(quoted from post at 14:11:00 12/17/09) Gary, Have they figured out yet how to get rid of spent nuclear fuel? I remember reading about a clean-up of the place in Hannford Oregon where they used to put it. I don't know if there is a permanent solution to that yet, let alone a price tag

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Due to a treaty we signed years ago we can't reprocess nuclear fuel which would greatly reduce the amount of waste.....I live in the heart of the new wind power here in Illinois..Using good farm land for electricity doesn't make sense to me...

First Im a mechanic not a person who looks up stuff on the internet unless its about cars or trucks or something.However about a year ago I looked up all I could about that because gas was 4 dollars a gallon.I looked for about 6 hours.Now I dont know,how much do you trust what you find on the internet?
It seems like if you start to look at who gives money to Greenpeace its big oil companys.It was somehow to do with the spotted owl or something out West something else on the East coast.So here you have big oil contributing to the people who were raising the most he11 about drilling.
Also the more I read the more it became obvious that people didnt have anything to do with it at all until propaganda was spread in newspapers in the area that was going to be drilled.Other than that all I know is that oil companys were a lot more consumer friendly until that last merger.
I have no explanation for them to be behind propaganda against drilling unless it would maybe be one company trying to hurt the competition.The more I looked at that angle the more it seemed like they all were the same company now.There is about 5 different names,but its all the same company.Few if any of these companys are based in the United States any more.Its like we are under attack from all sides.
I think its more to do with beating our country down than anything else.The big shots are not happy that a bunch of us want to retire and want to screw up the country?I dont know!
I know this,if Greenpeace had to get a contribution from me to move that ship across the ocean they better hunt up some oars.Its all an act put on the news for propaganda.Its takes a lot of money to move a ship around.Somebody smarter than me at looking stuff up might find out more.It sort of hinted that Greenpeace was owned by 2 big oil companys.One was BP if I remember right.
Also those capped wells were not all stripper wells.Some were big and took along time to haul oil away from.Also I read where they found a huge oil field in the northern United States that was way cheaper to extract oil from than those sands in Canada.
Also I read somewhere that they jacked the price of oil up to make that Oil Sand thing in Canada more profitable.
Take your pick thats the best I can do.I think any of that makes as much sense as the crap you said.Most people dont give a d@mn what anybody does.Just because its in a newspaper somewhere does not make it even close to true.Its been a long time since I was at the Gulf of Mexico but arent there lots of those off shore rigs between Louisiana and Florida anyway?Either old or maybe being still used when the price goes up?
Im fairly sure that we could make just as much or more Ethanol than Brazil in a short period of time if we wanted to.Anything to quit importing oil.Thats whats wrecked our economy is imported oil.These people running the country are not wanting to fix problems.They are like they are stupid.Rich people stupid.Take Carter for instance.He was wrong about most of what he tried to do.Reagan was almost as bad,daddy Bush was worse.Clinton had to help the economy because we were about ready to quit working.Our morale was ruined by Reagan and Bush.Then Clinton helped a little then it got worse with this Bush.All the time big business got bigger and working people got screwed more and more.Nixon started this whole corporate welfare scam.Even Nixon didnt like himself by the time he got done starting this mess.Its been downhill ever since.However if you are a big money person its been better and better.Less and less big money people are compassionate to working people.Seems like this is a natural state for human beings.Something will happen and a bunch of them will get thrown down form the top of the hill.Then its like a roll of the dice whether its better or worse.
The divide and conquer propaganda is in full swing so we dont get organized and throw them out now.It could still happen.
Somebody I know was in Vietnam and his commanding officer or somebody got way up in politics.I dont remember his name but I read about stuff he said before in a magazine.He was kind of famous for a while.We wer talking about this one time about 8 years ago.He was saying "We are going to build you up,then tear you back down."It kind of looks as if thats whats been happening.Rich people stupid and military crazy has been running this country.The crooks have been bringing in and selling dope all the time and they just play stupid games at running the country.They just drag us further and further into the 3rd world way of life.Something about these jerks makes them hate people that work and try to provide for their familys,or they try and steal as much as they can,I really dont know?I think they are actually criminals who run the government and have since Eisenhower was President,maybe way before that.At least these crooks have got to be getting old enough to die I hope.They have sure screwed up our country as far as I can tell.That Vietnam war was a big deal because of the draft.Those guys hate nnalert.Actually nnalert are not a lot different than nnalert any more.nnalert were more for the people and could be that way again.Its just the people making them do it have to be stopped.The nnalert are too corrupt to do anything with.Even when they were in charge they were worthless.They always creid becuase they never got a chance and we give them one and they give us a depression.I know people are mad at the nnalert now,but not as mad as they are at the nnalert.nnalert are going to loose even more power if they dont act.All they do is run their mouth but offer nothing for a solution.They are totally corrupt.
Thats about it.Its way less the nnalert and more a bunch of corrupt rich people than anything else.Just look at history,oil was always a corrupt business.Its the same thing now.They have all the money,and all the power,now they play with us,until we figure them out and slap them down.Again.