Probably the two biggest business issues in southwest Wisconsin since this column started have been two proposed concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) hog farms and the Dairyland Power ash problem at its Genoa plant.
If you’re not aware of the issues, here’s a quick summary. CAFOs in Vernon and Crawford counties led to opposition from people concerned about runoff from manure and other issues. The 2,500 hog operation in Vernon County was approved with some restrictions. Action on a 2,900 hog operation in Crawford County has been tabled for further study.
Meanwhile, Dairyland Power has installed new scrubbers which will reduce air pollution, but make ash from the plant not as useable for recycling. Thus, the coop has been looking for a possible dump site, again prompting opposition and bad public relations.
Dairyland also recently became the target of protestors, when its permits were renewed for discharging water into the Mississippi River. Some have expressed concern about mercury content in the water and monitoring of temperatures.
The issues are not directly related. Nothing involved with the hog operations can directly help Dairyland with its need to discharge water or its ash disposal problem — at least not in a way this writer can see. But, this writer has an idea that might be able to help Dairyland with its overall PR problem and help the coop show its concern for the environment. Here’s how.
Dairyland has been a leader in methane production of electricity. The coop owns three animal waste-to-energy facilities on dairy farms in its service territory. These “cow power” plants use dairy cow manure as the energy source to generate renewable energy.
The manure is collected and heated, creating the natural byproduct of methane gas. That biogas is the fuel used to power the generators.
Dairyland’s animal waste-to-energy facilities include: Five Star Dairy farm near Elk Mound, Wild Rose Dairy near La Farge, and Norswiss Farms near Rice Lake. Each anaerobic manure digester facility can generate 775-840 kilowatts of energy, enough to power at least 600 homes. Dairyland’s long-term goal is to create up to 25 MW of renewable electricity via the manure digesters, powering approximately 20,000 homes.
Hog manure can work as well as cow manure for the production of methane. Consider this from The Power Partners’ Resource Guide (PPRG), a web-based resource developed to help electric power companies undertake voluntary actions to reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and/or reduce emissions intensity.
Livestock manure is composed primarily of organic material and water. When manure decomposes in an anaerobic environment (i.e., in the absence of oxygen), methane is produced along with carbon dioxide and stabilized organic material. The major sources of U.S. livestock manure methane are large dairy and cattle operations and hog farms that use liquid manure management systems.
About ninety percent of manure is currently handled as a solid (e.g., in pastures or stacks on dry lots) but this portion produces only about twenty percent of total methane emissions from manure. Liquid manure management systems, such as lagoons, ponds, tanks, or pits, handle a much smaller portion of total manure but comprise 80 percent of total methane emissions from manure.
Dairy and swine farms are typically the only livestock farms where liquid and slurry manure systems are used. Beef, poultry, and other livestock farms generally don’t use liquid manure systems, and as a result produce much less methane.
The general trend in manure management – in part because of the trend towards larger automated farms – is toward increased use of the liquid systems that produce greater quantities of methane emissions. Liquid management is the more cost-effective option for manure management at large farms. As a consequence of this shift to liquid management, combined with changes in animal populations and feed consumption, methane emissions from manure management have been rising steadily over the past few years and are projected to continue rising.
It should start becoming clearer what the connection could be between the CAFOs and Dairyland. The coop should link with the developers of the CAFOs and install digester systems.
By Dairyland’s own estimates, the digesters can reduce the volume of manure left after the methane process. Consider this excerpt from a WisBiz In-Depth column of July 15, 2005: By converting manure to methane, storage needs are reduced and winter spreading of liquid manure could be cut back.
“That was a tragedy,” Neil Kennebeck, director of planning services for Dairyland, said (about a manure runoff problem that contributed to a fish kill at Jersey Valley Lake). “Methane projects do give the farmers some ways to reduce their storage.”
In addition to those benefits, methane production addresses other animal waste problems associated with manure disposal on farms. Odor is reduced, and weed seeds and pathogens are killed during the digestion process, thus reducing the need for herbicides and pesticides on the farm.
The connection between the CAFOs and Dairyland now should be crystal clear. Manure from the CAFOs could be reduced dramatically, thus cutting down on storage and disposal problems. Up to 1,200 homes could get their electricity from the methane produced at the two CAFOs thus far on record.
Dairyland could demonstrate that, despite its ash and water discharge problems, it truly does care about the environment and alternative energies.
Certainly, there would costs for both the CAFOs and Dairyland. But, in the long run, they would recover this additional cost in energy and storage improvements.
This still should not open the floodgates for more CAFOs. Because of the karst geology in the southwest region of the state, caution still has to be used when considering large animal operations. This proposal also does not address philosophic differences of organic farmers and others who just don’t agree with so-called “factory farms.”
But, no matter what your philosophy is, more CAFOs are inevitable. It would seem like making them sources of methane-produced electricity and helping them reduce their manure are positive steps for all involved.
This proposal still doesn’t address the Dairyland ash disposal problem, or its water discharge. Methane from landfills also is a growing source of alternative energy, but whether ash in a landfill can produce methane, and whether any landfill is a good solution, will be left to people who better know the science, environmental and business factors than this writer does.
But, it does seem to make sense for developers of CAFO and Dairyland to get together.
