Dung Power at U.S. Ethanol Plant

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12290

February 26, 2007 — By Carey Gillam, Reuters

MEAD, Neb. -- The frosty-breathed cattle jostling for position at a feeding trough in rural Nebraska are not quite as typical as they appear: their manure is being captured in a new bid to quench America's thirst for ethanol.

Like other cows in the Midwestern landscape, the animals at the Mead plant, part of an experimental scheme dubbed "Genesis", churn out a steady supply of energy-rich excrement each day.

But these 27,000 cattle stand on slatted floors to deposit an estimated 1.6 million pounds (726,000 kg) of dung daily into deep pits, which are located adjacent to a new ethanol plant.

The pungent waste is then processed into methane gas, which powers the ethanol plant. Other byproducts of the manure include fertilizer for the surrounding corn fields. Corn is then fed back to the cattle or distilled into ethanol.

The operations all are contained in one 2,000-acre complex which produces about 24 million gallons of ethanol a year.

"This is the first of its kind to use this kind of closed loop system," said Ron Lamberty, a spokesman for the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE), an industry lobbying organization.

"Most ethanol plants are powered with natural gas, but not quite that natural. It is very unique."

The United States currently counts 117 operational ethanol plants with the capacity to produce 5.3 billion gallons annually. More than 70 are under construction, according to ACE.

Traditional ethanol facilities use natural gas or coal to fuel the boilers that create steam and distil ethanol from corn or other plant-based sources.

But such operations are vulnerable to volatile natural gas prices, and critics say the pollution associated with coal-fired plants offset the benefits of substituting ethanol for gasoline.

The Mead plant offers a way round those problems and, because it removes cattle manure from the environment and recycles waste water, the project is environmentally friendly, according to its backers.

"It's win, win, win," said Brian Barber, director of project development for E3 BioFuels of Shawnee, Kansas, which owns the Mead facility.

FULL article at link.