Calif. efforts to make electricity from manure slip as the waste becomes a growing pollution source

The concentration of livestock production has made manure a greater threat to water supplies, and in the biggest agricultural state, efforts to turn the waste into energy aren't working out as growers hoped. More regulation may be in the offing.

Looking back at four decades of water-cleanup efforts, David A. Fahrenthold of The Washington Post reports,"The country simply has more dung than it can handle: Crowded together at a new breed of megafarms, livestock produce three times as much waste as people, more than can be recycled as fertilizer for nearby fields. That excess manure gives off air pollutants, and it is the country's fastest-growing large source of methane, a greenhouse gas." (Read more) Brownfield Network reports that the EPA may require confined animal feeding operations to report releases of hydrogen sulfide, perhaps the most odiferous gas from manure. (Read more)

Dairy farmers in California thought they could turn the manure concentration into an advantage by using the waste to generate electricity, but "Efforts to convert cow pies into power have sparked controversy," P.J. Huffstutter of the Los Angeles Times reports. "State air quality control regulators say these 'dairy digester' systems can generate pollution themselves and, unless the devices are overhauled, are refusing to issue permits for them." The generators used to convert the methane into electricity produce key ingredients in smog: oxides of nitrogen, called NOx for their chemical notation.

"The board has been clear that when we're faced with these sorts of trade-offs between reducing greenhouse gases and reducing NOx, we're going to choose NOx," Dave Warner, director of permit services the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, told Huffstutter. He added that the farmers, who began installing the systems only to be refused a permit, "should have checked in with us first, before buying their equipment."

One dairyman, Ron Koetsier, abandoned his system after being told he'd need to spend hundreds of thousands more dollars to bring it in line with smog regulations. "They have a point. I want clean air," he told Huffstutter. "But it doesn't make financial sense for me keep doing this. I don't see how they can turn methane gas into electricity in California, given these rules." (Read more)