All those who live in Nebraska, as well as many who live outside the Cornhusker state, know that Nebraska's economy relies on corn and cows. Unfortunately, those of us who do not receive a direct financial benefit from the cows in the state still have to deal with the smell of the 1000+ feedlots on record with Nebraska's Department of Agriculture. For a good number of Nebraskans, the smell of manure is not the smell of money, but we are not likely to get rid of them any time in the foreseeable future.
Most Nebraskans also know that we get our electricity from coal-burning power plants. Although the Nebraska Public Power District, or NPPD, is slowly beginning to tap into wind power, NPPD has overlooked another potentially endless source of energy in the state - manure. Under the correct conditions, manure produces methane, which is both the major component of natural gas and a cleaner-burning fuel than coal according to NaturalGas.org.
In fact, one ethanol plant in Mead, Nebraska has begun to use the methane from some of Nebraska's manure in a unique way. The Genesis plant is actually an ethanol plant attached to a feed lot. Essentially, an article in The Farmer explains that the corn byproduct from ethanol production gets fed directly to the cows in the attached feedlot, the cow manure produces methane through an anaerobic process, and the methane powers the ethanol plant. In this system, the plant produces its own methane rather than buying natural gas.
Potentially, if all Nebraska feedlots were equipped to turn manure into methane, Nebraska could replace coal with methane. Although the NPPD is developing wind energy, an article in the Omaha World Herald claims that we will be exporting at least some of this energy to "big-population centers." If the NPPD is going to market wind energy, they could potentially earn more money for the state and decrease energy costs for Nebraskans by utilizing energy from methane as well as from wind. The NPPD should look into developing methane power in Nebraska.
Britt,
ReplyDeletePlease get your facts straight. NPPD does receive electricity from methane through one operation near Dodge, nebraska, although small in amount. A year ago february, NPPD sponsored a methane conference in York that was fairly well attended with the intended purpose of generating interest by farm operations that generate manure that would be interested in doing something similar. Shortly after that, NPPD announced that it would accept proposals up to 10 meawatts in size from wind, solar, methane, co-generation, and small hydropower operations to purchase the generated electricity. A number of proposals were received but not one from the generation of electricity through methane from farming operations, although there were proposals from landfill operations.
Obviously the costs for doing so and a down economy may have had something to do with that less than rousing response.
Second, NPPD is developing wind energy that will serve what is known as the native load - what Nebraskans in NPPD's service territory need (NPPD is not the only electric generator in the state). Currently there is a goal of having 10% of NPPD's energy resources come from renewable resources by 2020.
NPPD is not developing wind to export the energy into "big population centers" as you have written. There are numerous private developers in the state that would like to do that but they do have to have a buyer for the electricty and they do need a way to get that electricity to the customers. That is where the need for transmission lines is necessary but they tend to be costly, roughly $1 million per mile and with the building of transmission lines, some people do not want them and will fight through the court system to do so. There are many unanswered questions that will be addressed by the Nebaska legislature on the exporting of wind thrugh LR83 so stay tuned.
By the way, Nebraskans n average have the fifth lowest electric rates in the United States due to the fact that the state is an all public power state - there are no investors that need to make money off generating electricity.