Straus Family Creamery making its own electricity, from Poo

Poo has been a bit of a subject lately on the blog. It's useful stuff, I may have to create a whole new label for the blog.

Straus Family Creamery (organic, btw) down in California's central coast, has gone green for their electricity production. They use methane digesters to generate both electricity and compost for their pastures.

I've been hollaring about this for years -- why not use the poo created in feedlots and animal facilities of all kinds to produce methane? It cleans up the waste, when it comes out of the digester it is even better fertilizer than before, and reduces greenhouse gas emission enormously.

Granted, cow poo works better than some, so is a good place to start.

I did run into folks talking about problems with pig poo because there are sulfur compounds in the gas, making it a problem to burn. It is the sulfur in coal that creates acid rain, and burning pig offal methane could release the same compounds. However, it appears there is a viable method of scrubbing the gas before it is used, so maybe pig poo is viable after all.

Anyway, I just wanted to put up some props for Straus for having pulled off the electrical facility on their farm. I think it's absolutely fantastic that folks are getting this much-needed and very reasonable technology off the ground.

PS: No I'm not advertising for Straus -- I just like their butter, yogurt and their stewardship, what can I say.

Enjoy watching real-life, sane answers to some of our problems come about,

Bp

[picture credit on Straus Creamery website]