How can we use
our resources effectively by using our farm waste to provide energy our country
It's interesting about how much energy a cow can produce.
Farmers using methane produced by cow dung are expecting to produce enough
energy to keep a 150 watt bulb running continuously. I have read about methane
production from animals before and also about the amount of heat a human
produces. A human's body produces about the same amount of energy as a one
hundred watt bulb. This is done from the skin while at rest, not from the
methane production.
About twenty years ago I wrote a story about ecol i bacteria in the ground water
which was produced from disposable diapers. The idea came to me when I met a
man and woman who ran a local diaper service and they told me about the
subject. It was printed on a whole page in the Macomb Journal. The reporter
that took my research put her name on it and gave me no credit at all even
though I spent about ten hours at the library doing the study plus interviews.
But that's another story.
In California, near Fresno, there was a huge cattle farm. In California they
"Hogged" the cattle, meaning that they kept the cattle in pens that were very
over crowded and they walked through their own dung. This was pretty close to
where I lived and the stench was very strong when you were driving down I-5.
At that time there was a newspaper article that was written about people
complaining about the smell and wanted the farm to be removed so that they could
drive down I-5 and have fresh air. But after a study and reply, the farm was
there many years before I-5 was even a concept.
Another article talking about flatulence of cows discussed the amount of methane
given off into the air from this source alone. Just recently there was another
article that said that high meat eating countries have about one third of their
greenhouse gasses given off from the methane from cows, pigs, etc.
Converting the methane to energy can be a huge business. This is why I
mentioned about what we can learn from racing about the global environment. In
racing we looked for a quarter percent here, a tenth of a percent there and even
a hundredth of a percent, because in a hundred lap endurance race, that makes a
huge difference. All you have to do to win a race is to cross the line a
thousandth of a second ahead of the other guy. I have worked as a race team
manager from 1979 to 1984 and have raced or been involved in racing all of my
life. But, this is what it takes to keep us from going over the tipping point
in our race to win against global warming. It's just like surviving in the
wild, you don't just walk all day long, then spend time looking for food just
part of the time, you eat all of the time that you're walking, finding food the
entire time.
As a global community we are that close to edge of survival or to winning or
losing the race. We must look at every opportunity to use our resources
efficiently or our waste can kill us. Second place doesn't work in survival,
you either win or you lose and that's final.
C. Jeff Dyrek, Webmaster.
Read this article
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
From Monday's Globe and Mail
July 21, 2008 at 4:11 AM EDT
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