Posted on 01/18/2005 11:34:12 AM PST by bedolido
MONTPELIER, Vermont (AP) -- The 1,500 cows at Blue Spruce Farm in Bridport are producing more than just milk. They're generating electricity.
The methane gas from their manure is being used to produce electricity for Vermont's largest utility.
"This is the first time anywhere in the country that a farm-based generation has been offered to customers as a renewable choice," Central Vermont Public Service Corp. spokesman Steve Costello said.
Other farms have generated electricity for their own use, he said.
The manure is heated up and then produces methane gas as it breaks down. The gas is collected and used to power a generator, which sends electricity onto the power grid.
So far about 1,000 customers have signed on to pay about 4 cents more per kilowatt-hour for their electricity to support the farmers. Residential households ordinarily pay about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Once they get it dehydrated, they can sell it to Wisconsin for burning in stoves.
Embarass Wisconsin hit -54F yesterday.
It might not smell to good but at -54 I don't think I would care what flavor it was as long as it was warm.
...make a good tagline there young muttly.
carry on.
Have you ever roped a sewer trout?
Shows that even McDonald's has standards.
No, but we think they stretch on the float down to the plant because they are not for normal men when they hit the plant.
Hmmmm, I learn something new everyday on Free Republic.
Just ask Mexico.
But the UN wants to reduce the methane emmissions of livestock. Aren't they developing fart-free livestock as I type? The green house gasses are not only scary, but smelly. [Holding nose, walking off, muttering to self.]
I've got to wonder about the IQ of customers who pay 33% more for their electricity for the satisfaction of knowing it comes from BS.
"With Michael Moore around, we should no longer be dependant on the middle east for oil."
Harness the forces of the DNC, capped with Clinton speeches in key points to implode Moore's concentrated 'energy' aka atom bomb style, and the first space ship makes it to Mars. Only question, would the astronauts survive?
What would happen if we shredded the Washington Compost, the New York Slimes, mixed them together with a Shrillary speech, aim Ted Kennedy toward the pile of paper, and have him blow into a match?
I take it that you haven't been anywhere near Vermont in the last twenty years. They still have hippie communes here.
So that explains it. All this time I thought it was from kneeling down and banging their heads on the floor five times a day.
What these hippie morons don't realize is that the electricity to your house comes from the nearest power plant, no matter whether you think you're buying it from a BS plant somewhere else in the state. There's no way to get around physics, unless the BS plant runs new power lines everywhere.
We have the same thing in Texas. You can pay extra to buy power from Green Mountain, a windmill farm in West Texas, but the odds are you're getting all your power from a nuke or a gas-powered plant. Possibly coal.
Pssst...there a nuke plant in Vermont, as well. Just don't tell the hippies. :-)
This tweaked my memory so vividly I have to relate this story which is as true as anything I have sworned to as an honest truth.
Here goes:
I was a signalman on board the U.S.S. Catskill LSV-1 on the way to the invasion of Okinawa with Marines of the 6th Marine Div.(I think), it was about a week bsfore the assault which began on the 1st day of April 1945.
There were about half a dozen Marines gathered with a small number of ship's compliment of the Comunication Div. and X Div. which were the sailors who would operate the landing craft carrying these troops(and the rest of the Marine compliment as well as their equipment to the invasion beaches assigned to them as their landing area.
In other words assault waves, one of which was my responsibility as a signalman to signal the wave we were in to cease circling when signaled by the picket boat which marked the line we were to form to head to the beach in as straight a line as possible when we reached the Picket boat(small ship).
I digress from the whole point of this narative which is to tell how we discovered farts do burn.
Whichever Marine had the most gas would get on the chart table lay on his side pull up his pants as tight as he could and when he was ready to let it go someone would strike a match(lighters were rare in that day)and hold it close to the place the gas would likely come out and low and behold a small but definitely a tiny blue flame would flare the match.
I failed to mention the chart room was completely blacked out so everybody got to witness this small but notable miracle.
For some of us History was made that night so many many long years ago, I often wonder if any of those super brave Marines are still alive, if they are and they see this or maybe heard about from some of the guys who were involved maybe it was recounted and received a laugh or two and break the fear cycle of not knowing what the next day would bring, death or another day of indescribable horror facing each one that survived one more day of carnage and loneliness on Okinawa!
As a postscript to this experience my wife's brother a Marine was killed on Okinawa during this campaign after having been wounded twice on Saipan during that bloody conflict!
"SEMPER FI"! Corp. Ernest Alphonse Jacobi A Co. 6th Engineer Bn. 6th Marine Div. and all your brave comrades who did and those who did not make it back to your love ones who have never stop missing you.
That's a great idea, I am going to build some fake windmills and tell by cousins who work at Rayle Electric Co-op.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.