Manure Power! If only Dubya was forward thinking like this farmer instead of dreaming about his "1000 Points of Coal Power Plants"...
Wrightstown - Fourth-generation dairyman Carl Theunis can lay claim to the state's most productive herd - each of his Holsteins each year generates 26,000 pounds of milk, 9,855 pounds of manure and 417 watts of electricity.
After years of planning, borrowing and building, Theunis, his wife Sharon and their four sons on Wednesday watched Gov. Scott McCallum flip the switch that made their family farm into Wisconsin's first cow-powered electric plant.
Here's how it works:
The 1,800 Holsteins feeding, ambling around and lying down in the four curtain-walled barns at Tinedale Farm produce a pile of 48,600 pounds of manure every day.
Instead of being spread on Tinedale's 4,000 acres of cropland, all that waste is loaded into a huge on-site chamber, where it is digested by anaerobic bacteria at two different temperatures.
The result is 300,000 cubic feet of methane gas, collected at the top of the chamber and piped to an on-site electric generator, where it is burned. The burned methane produces a constant flow of 750 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power 250 houses.....
....McCallum not only praised the project, he also used the occasion to unveil major parts of his energy policy, due to be released next week. Three points in particular, he said, directly relate to manure-to-energy operations:
Seeking a possible expansion in the amount of renewable energy required of each electric utility in the state. Currently, the requirement is for less than 2%.
Setting up a renewable energy program showcasing new technologies.
Creating public-private partnerships to demonstrate and lower the costs of on-farm energy production. Citing the $400,000 low-cost loan from the state Commerce Department and a $100,000 grant from Brown County used to finance the digester, McCallum said: "Renewable energy provides a good return on investment and creates three times as many jobs, earnings and output than does investment in fossil fuels."
The first of many?
Secretary of Agriculture Jim Harsdorf called the plant an "example of why Wisconsin is still the place for dairying."
He envisioned the spread of similar plants across the state, where rural electric cooperatives might be able to bring together groups of small dairy farmers in shared operations.
Dick Griggs, president of Wisconsin Electric Power Co., which will buy the 750 kilowatts of power produced at the farm, was on hand to congratulate Theunis for "having the vision and the drive to get this project done."
He reiterated the utility's commitment to alternative sources of energy, which already produce 140 megawatts of electricity for the company, and expressed his willingness to buy more manure-based power in the future.
According to calculations by Wisconsin Electric, if all the cow manure in the state were collected and processed in manure digesters, the resulting methane could produce 750 megawatts of electricity, 1,000 times as much as the Tinedale plant and three-fourths the amount produced by the Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant.
A positive focus
To the Iowa State University researchers who developed the process used here, the proper term is "manure management by temperature phased anaerobic digestion."
However, Theunis, 53, sees the technology as a just-in-time idea capable of transforming many negatives about his beloved dairy industry into positives, specifically:
Removing pathogens and pollutants from the manure;
Providing a reliable stream of extra income;
Producing a dependable alternative supply of electricity;
Controlling odors that bothered his neighbors; and
Keeping his four sons on the farm.
In a warm welcome to his visitors Wednesday, he described a conversation with his four sons that struck a responsive chord with every farm family in the audience.
His sons came to him and said that they loved dairying and wanted to stay on the farm, he said. But, they added, they also wanted a life a little more like that of their city-dwelling contemporaries, one in which they could have days off, could take vacations and could spend time off the farm with their children.
Now, his sons - Mike, 32, Scott, 31, Todd, 25, and Jim, 23 - can work the farm, each with separate responsibilities, and still count on those rare commodities on traditional dairy farms, time off and vacations. The farm's 16 full-time employees have similar benefits, said Mike Theunis, who runs the herd while Scott takes charge of the crops, Todd the computer operation and Jim the maintenance duties. jsonline.com
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