Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has just submitted a bill in the Senate that would establish federal tax credits, loans, and loan guarantees to encourage production of "biogas" from cow manure. Three Republicans are co-sponsoring the bill: Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Wayne Allard of Colorado, and Larry Craig of Idaho. A similar bill has been introduced in the House. As described by an article in the Omaha World-Herald, the legislation would "help ease America's addiction to fossil fuels by encouraging a renewable resource."
Here we go again.
Senator Nelson envisions building a national biogas industry. His motto: "Don't waste the waste."
In Nebraska, cattle outnumber people 4-to-1. And cattle produce methane, both via what emanates from the animal in, ahem, gaseous form, and what gets produced in their decomposing manure. The article describes these contributions as "significant," but the accompanying graph shows that methane from manure accounts for just 3.6 percent of total U.S. methane emissions.
Here's the upside:
Biogas manufacturing plants could help curb greenhouse gas emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, while improving water quality through better manure management, the senator says.
Moreover:
The plants could help trim America's oil consumption, pump money into rural towns and help run power plants or possibly futuristic cars.
Oooooh, futuristic cars! Shiny ...
Er, where was I? Oh, yes. Where have we heard that kind of argument before? This excerpt from the article provides a clue:
Nelson has been interested in developing renewable energy since he was Nebraska's governor in the 1990s and promoted the growth of the corn-based ethanol industry. As a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, he has supported federal legislation expanding ethanol's use, along with other biofuels such as soy diesel. "If you look at it, biogas is just the next natural progression ... as we continue to look to diversify the whole area of fuel sources," Nelson said Tuesday.
...
Lately, with ethanol production soaring, cattlemen have become concerned about rising prices for corn to feed their cattle. Nelson's bill could help defray some costs by generating additional income from sales of manure for biogas.
That's what troubles me. Subsidies are driving the rapid expansion of the ethanol industry, which is driving up feed-corn prices, so the answer is ... yet another subsidy!
"We understand that new industries need some sort of financial support," he said.
All new industries, Senator, or just certain ones? What about electric bicycles, for example? Oh, right. Not made in the Midwest.
Under Nelson's proposal, biogas producers could receive a tax credit of $4.27 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) of biogas produced. Given that natural-gas prices are currently running at around $7.70/MMBtu, that's a pretty generous subsidy -- 55% of market value.
It also would offer loans and loan guarantees to help stimulate multifarm collection of manure and transportation to a biogas facility. Manure could be collected by trucks now used to clean out porta-potties. Biogas producers also could receive a federal subsidy when natural gas prices fell below a certain level.
Current biogas plants produce gas that is 60 percent methane and the rest mostly carbon dioxide. The incentives in Nelson's bill could help finance technology needed to purify it to 90 percent methane, which then could be fed into natural gas pipelines.
Nelson developed his bill in part after talking with owners of the first biogas plant in Nebraska. The E3 Biofuels plant in Mead produces methane from manure gathered at a 30,000-head cattle feedlot onsite. The methane then fuels an adjoining ethanol plant.
To produce methane, animal waste is collected into large tanks. Technicians add byproducts from the ethanol plant and other material to speed up a process known as "anaerobic digestion," which breaks down the manure into fertilizer and methane-based gas. [my emphasis]
Granted, there is a value to turning methane into usable energy and keeping it from simply dissipating into the air. (It would be useful if somebody produced some figures on cost-effectiveness of Sen. Nelson's proposal -- i.e., the subsidy per tonne of CO2-equivalent emission avoided.) But why do I get the feeling that what this bill is really about is helping the corn-ethanol industry and their associated concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFOs) to lower their production costs?
Whatever happened to the polluter-pays principle?
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Comments
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GreenEngineer Posted 8:21 am
10 May 2007
From a GHG perspective, this is likely a pretty decent deal: for each unit of methane thus generated, not only do you offset the burning of an equivalent amount of natural gas, but you render that methane into CO2, which has 1/22 as much GWP as the methane. (That's assuming that the manure decomposing under natural conditions, would produce a similar amount of methane, just over a longer period of time. That may not be a correct assumption.)
I agree, though, that this is a highly suspect bill. For one thing, it really favors CAFO production methods over free range grazing. (On the other hand, I know that the Strauss dairy in Marin County has a methane digester and generator that produces a surprising amount of electricity, and they are a free range operation. So it can be done.)
A better bill would provide a more substantial one-time tax credit (or even a rebate) for the construction of the facilities. The amount of the incentive would be proportional to the design capacity of the facility, and would be contingent upon measured production at a reasonable percentage of design capacity over a period of at least a year. That way, you're encouraging the switch from open manure ponds to close biodigesters (which are a good idea, even if you just flare the gas) without actually distorting the price of the fossil fuels.
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:22 am
10 May 2007
What I don't agree with is that we need a subsidy.
Natural Gas, in particular, is more volatile in pricing than Oil.
Hence why so many utilities are looking towards coal.
You don't need a subsidy to make biogas be profitable.
And even if you did, the subsidy shouldn't go to the producer, it should go to the power plant operator.
i.e. Target the decision makers, and limit the externalities by focusing on what you specifically want to happen.
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GreenEngineer Posted 8:29 am
10 May 2007
This is Michael Pollan's suggestion for attacking the industrial food system, specifically industrial meat production. If the CAFOs were required to follow the same environmental standards as a human city of a similar size, that would be the end of open manure pits and many other travesties. CAFO's would cease to be economic, at which point they would largely cease to exist.
Good luck on that one, though.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 9:12 am
10 May 2007
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 9:26 am
10 May 2007
Rancher and lawyer Nicolette Hahn Niman had an interesting op-ed in the New York Times regarding CAFOdiesel. She's opposed.
A Load of Manure:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/04/opinion/04niman.html?ex ...
As y'all probably know, Tyson and ConocoPhillips have gone into the CAFOfuel business together. Their project is expected to produce 178 million gallons of CAFOdiesel from chicken, hog and cattle waste.
Here's the Industry Week article on the Tyson-Conoco deal:
http://industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=13999
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Dawn Pillsbury Posted 9:49 am
10 May 2007
If you have a chance to try Straus raspberry ice cream, do yourself that favor. That comes from happy cows.
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wiscidea Posted 9:53 am
10 May 2007
(2) One way to reduce consumptiton of meat is to eliminate subsidies that lower the price for consumers. Make us carnivores pay for our bad habits.
(3) Waste from livestock contributes to global warming and other environmental problems.
(4) We can derive energy from the waste, reducing greenhouse gases and other environmental problems.
(5) If that energy is sold, it reduces the rancher's expenses and reduces the price of meat for consumers.
(6) And the wheel continues turning, grinding the biosphere into dust.
How does one resolve this conundrum?
And there are many many other products derived from cattle... not just beef... all supporting the industry.
Forward!
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:05 am
10 May 2007
But small scale distributed biogas in developing countries is rather beneficial.
i.e. toss pig slop into a sealed vat, and then pipe it into the house for heating and lighting.
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sunflower Posted 12:27 pm
10 May 2007
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 12:58 pm
10 May 2007
Oppose CAFOs.
See anaerobic digesters and methane digesters at Energy Justice Network:
http://www.energyjustice.net/digesters/
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Earth Shaman Posted 1:09 pm
10 May 2007
Earth Shaman
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wiscidea Posted 1:37 pm
10 May 2007
I read an article about a waste processing system I like to call "The Turkinator" -- because the pilot study involved processing waste from a turkey slaughter house -- in Discover Magazine well over a year ago. It could take any waste -- including hazardous agricultural, human, or medical waste -- and turn it into inert dry matter, energy, water, and -- I think -- high-quality fuel. Once one primes the system, the process runs off of a fraction of the energy contained in the feedstock. I don't know the proper engineering terms. Sorry about that. Last I heard, it was up and running in Europe. It is economical over there because it is too expensive to dispose of garbage and the primary product, the fuel, can compete with high-priced gasoline and diesel fuel. Landfills and gasoline are still too cheap here.
Anyway... do you know whether it will be appearing soon in a city near me... or anyone else in the United States? It seems ideal for getting rid of municipal waste, I think it is carbon-neutral, and it looks like gasoline will soon be at least $4.00 per gallon.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 1:42 pm
10 May 2007
Do you know whether the type of septic tanks used in the U.S. can be tapped for gas to burn for heating or cooking? Can it be stored? Is it legal anywhere in the U.S.?
Forward!
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Earth Shaman Posted 2:15 pm
10 May 2007
Earth Shaman
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Earth Shaman Posted 2:32 pm
10 May 2007
Earth Shaman
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Ron Steenblik Posted 4:17 pm
10 May 2007
Digesters are only marginally effective at reducing problems with odors, pathogens and greenhouse gas emissions from animal waste or sewage sludge, but they are incapable of making any chemical contaminants in the wastes go away. Digesters aren't emissions-free. They are known to emit nitrogen and sulfur oxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide and ammonia. ... Large anaerobic digesters are used to make factory farms more viable. Consequently, advocates of small family farms and of sustainable agriculture see digesters as a Trojan horse that pretends to solve a waste management problem while enabling factory farms to invade the community.
What it says about emissions is surprising. Can anybody verify or refute those assertions?
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Erik Hoffner Posted 10:59 pm
10 May 2007
http://www.cvps.com/cowpower
These farms are concentrated animal operations, no doubt, but on a much smaller scale than out west. Most dairies around here have a between on hundred to a few hundred cows. It may help some of them stay financially stable, and in a climate where getting any new renewable energy sources online is tough, it's potentially important to the region.
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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Ron Steenblik Posted 11:21 pm
10 May 2007
That is far from what is being proposed in Senator Nelson's bill. In that case, taxpayers will be financing the treatment of waste from large-scale operations that probably could afford to do it themselves. And it seems to be designed in a way that particularly favors the ethanol industry -- consumption of whose product is mandated by government.
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sunflower Posted 11:29 pm
10 May 2007
marsh tanks
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amazingdrx Posted 12:14 am
11 May 2007
When manure runs off into wetlands it facilitates the conversion of biomass that stores CO2 into methane. Furthermore, chemical agriculture is essentially hydroponic. It depends on constantly flooding the soil with chemical fertilizer.
That chemical fertilizer also runs off into wetlands. Add in lawns and golf courses to agribusiness run off, and it's a huge nitrogen source. Biodigestion of the stored biomass depends upon the carbon to nitrogen ratio.
Generally this biomass is starved of nitrogen and the digestion proceeds very slowly, but when run off boosts the nitrogen levels it speeds up.
By using organic fertilizer from biogas digestion in soil it locks the nitrogen into a living ecosystem of micro-organisms in the soil. No more runn off. No more soil as sterile growing medium needing constant flooding with fertilizer that then runs off.
I don't like CAFO operations either, or ethanol. It is a shame to see biogas used to further these very bad practices.
I am told that biogas to electricity from the local landfill used to generate power in an internal combustion generator is profitable to the landfill if the utility pays 16 cents per kwh. With a solid oxide fuel cell/turbine that is over three times the efficiency, that lowers that profit level to less than 6 cents per kwh.
And used as a backup for wind and solar, the average cost for profitability would be even lower. Biogas is a good biofuel, unlike fuel farmed ethanol or biodiesel. Does it deserve a separate subsidy? I think the subsidy for renewable electricity would suffice.
But some sort of policy that incorporates biodigestion of manure and farm waste and organic fertilizer for energy production and building depleted soil back up into a huge carbon sink might call for a whole scale reform of farming subsidies. Rewrite that farm bill and make every farm a potential wind, solar, and biogas distributed power plant. Biogas is easily stored for times with no wind or sun energy input.
A comprehensive distributed renewable energy grid with a signifigant fraction of farms, homes, factories, buildings, malls converted to wind, solar, and/or biogas energy production would power the rest of the nation.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 12:31 am
11 May 2007
Some of the documentation for the Energy Justice Network claims about methane and anaerobic digesters is in the GRACE report EJN links to.
See: http://www.energyjustice.net/digesters/
EJN founder Mike Ewall recently stated that digestion shouldn't be described as something that can "leach out the toxics."
Mike says his view is partially based on his common sense understanding of the technology (it's designed to extract CO2 and methane; not to extract toxics) and the lack of any data showing toxins to be leached out.
The data that I do have on air emissions is relating to the contaminants known to be in digester gas, such as SO2 (formed from the H2S in the gas), CO, NOx and PM. I haven't yet seen any data on other pollutants in digester gas of the emissions from the burning of such gas, probably because no one is looking for them.
Data from a report done by Phil Lusk's group for NREL:
Lusk, P. (1998). Methane Recovery from Animal Manures: A Current Opportunities Casebook. 3rd Edition. NREL/SR-25145. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Work performed by Resource Development Associates, Washington, DC. This report was prepared for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory under NREL Subcontract No. ECG-8-17098-01 and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Regional Biomass Energy Program.
The document is now online ~
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/25145.pdf
Page 3-12 has air emissions estimates.
I understand there's a revised version from Lusk's group dated 11/30/1999 which has far higher production and emissions numbers, based on an increase in the amount of anaerobic digestion since the above report.
Also ~ rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman's New York Times anti-CAFOdiesel op-ed is worth a read.
A Load of Manure:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/04/opinion/04niman.html?ex ... ...
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amazingdrx Posted 1:15 am
11 May 2007
To separate metals from the final biodigestion product bacteria have been employed that atract these contaminants. Another process that could prove effective is the electromagnetic separation of non-magnetic metals.
This is very effective in garbage separation. First the magnetic metals are removed with regular magnets, then an electromagnet induces electric current in the remaining metals, like aluminum, and they are then separated by another magnet.
This could be possible on a microscopic level as well, as in the case of heavy metals in biodigestor fertilizer.
In the case of industrial compounds, like PCBs in the sediment in the hudson river (for example), digestion of the contaminated sediment and concentration of the PCBs by the process would make it possible to subject them to heat and pressure for a final breakdown to basic, harmless compounds.
Biodigestion concentrates toxins, making them possible to deal with. The usual plan is to dig up whole sections of contaminated sediment and landfill it. A very bad and very expensive plan.
Attacking biogas digestion in the same mode as we attack farmed biofuels will be difficult. And in my view wrong headed. Biogas is part of the solution.
on the whole subsidy issue, once again it is fine to stand against subsidies on principle, but that means you must either advocate the elimination of all subsidies or equal subsidies for competing technologies that ACTUALLY reduce GHGs. Ethanol and biodiesel from farming actually increase GHGs.
Biogas digestion clearly reduces GHGs, because methane is 23 times worse a GHG than CO2. Organic fertilizer from biogas digestion converts soil back into a carbon sink, that absorbs cO2. And stops chemical fertilizer run off, that releases huge amounts of methane and CO2 from wetlands. Biogas as a backup for wind, water, and solar power could save another whole huge amount of GHGs.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:22 am
11 May 2007
Technical illiteraties (hehey) took the standard argument against fuel farming and inserted biogas. In order to do this sort of substitution it is still necessary to understand the subject matter at hand.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Ron Steenblik Posted 1:36 am
11 May 2007
Is manure produced in CAFOs, where it is collected as a slurry, more likely to give off methane than manure deposited on a grassy pasture and quickly exposed to air? I should know the answer to that, but I don't. Do any of you Gristers?
As for equity, the largest 2% of all livestock operations now produce over 40% of all animals. As Michael Pollan (and GreenEngineer point out), if the CAFOs were required to follow the same environmental standards as a human city of a similar size, they would be covering much of the cost themselves.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:06 am
11 May 2007
Aerobic digestion emits cO2, less of a problem than methane. Believe it or not Ron, farmers actually have dung collecting attachments for their equipment. To remove it from fields.
This seems bad, but is it? Collect the dung, digest it, get the energy (with fuel cells, then trap the cO2 and other gases in solar algae growing collectors), get the organic fertilizer, build the soil by applying it with pinpoint injection in liquid form, increase the CO2 storing potential of soil (for prairie soil it is 1.8 tons of cO2 per acre per year).
I think grass feeding and humane farming could work well with biogas energy backup for solar and wind. And organic farming that produces quality food at a comparable price with modern agri-chem farming.
Farmers could make as much from selling the nation energy in the form of renewable kwhs from wind, solar, and biogas as they make from quality organic food and grass fed milk, eggs, and meat.
For a farm bill and an energy bill and a GHG bill we can ask our representatives to support. Obama and other farm state candidates take note. This will get more votes than ethanol exagerations. The signs are there beside the road top read.
Look out your bus window candiates, they say, "Ethanol Free Gas Here!" at many gas stations. We know even E10 lowers mileage 10% in many vehicles. Costing us an extra gallon bought and burned to go the same mileage.
And an extra gallon of gas and diesel, bought at the price of US soldiers and civilian lives,to make the ethanol.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Biodiversivist Posted 11:45 pm
11 May 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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