Free Energy is No Bull
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010
This autumn, the Liaoning Huishan Cow Farm in northeast China will open the largest manure power project in the world. The dung from 250,000 cows will be processed in four biogas turbines, supplying 38,000 megawatt-hours annually and projected to supply 15,000 residents with power. And the process also reduces organic waste, creates fertiliser and generates heat.
US energy firm General Electric isn’t renowned for its charitable impulses, so there is obviously money to be made here for them. “There is a huge potential in this. We are looking around the world to expand” says Michael Wagner, GE Energy marketing leader. The key element is money: China is investing heavily in the growing biogas industry because it makes sense. According to the New York Times, In Europe a biogas project could pay for itself in about five years.
China has been pioneering green power generation on a smaller scale for decades, from household digesters to large-scale biogas plants at farms and waste sites. It’s not rocket science: cow dung is put into an oxygen-free chamber where it produces a methane/carbon dioxide mix called biogas. But China’s plan for 300 million rural residents to use biogas for electricity by 2020 is impressive – the government is planning 10,000 large-scale biogas projects on livestock farms.
One big advantage is that dairy farms are already located in the rural areas where new electricity demand is cropping up, eliminating the need for expensive new infrastructure. This cuts down on dairy’s estimated 4% of world-wide greenhouse gases. Obviously China has a lot more cows than Ireland, but the percentages still make sense: dairy farming, struggling as it is in this country, could be one way to rebuild our shattered economy – and we’d have lots of good cheese!
