A plan to cover hog-manure lagoons could generate new energy opportunities while reducing greenhouse gases, Greg Barnes reports for North Carolina Health News.
Smithfield, the world's largest hog producer, unveiled the plan last October, saying that it would install lagoon covers and anaerobic digesters on 90 percent of its hog-finishing farms in North Carolina, Missouri and Utah within the next 10 years. The covers will capture 85,000 tons of methane each year to convert it into biogas, Barnes reports.
"Smithfield spokeswoman Lisa Martin said the pork producer and Dominion Energy will pay for the infrastructure, including piping, transportation, gas cleaning and equipment to inject the gas into pipelines," Barnes reports. "Farmers will pay for the digesters and lagoon covers if they choose to participate, Martin said."
Smithfield, the world's largest hog producer, unveiled the plan last October, saying that it would install lagoon covers and anaerobic digesters on 90 percent of its hog-finishing farms in North Carolina, Missouri and Utah within the next 10 years. The covers will capture 85,000 tons of methane each year to convert it into biogas, Barnes reports.
"Smithfield spokeswoman Lisa Martin said the pork producer and Dominion Energy will pay for the infrastructure, including piping, transportation, gas cleaning and equipment to inject the gas into pipelines," Barnes reports. "Farmers will pay for the digesters and lagoon covers if they choose to participate, Martin said."
In North Carolina alone, the move could help bring 19,000 jobs per year through 2030, according to a 2016 report by the nonprofit American Jobs Project. Duke University has said it wants to use hog-sourced biofuel instead of natural gas to fuel its steam plants, Barnes reports.
North Carolina is the third-richest biogas resource state in the nation, "but some neighbors to big hog farms who have lived with odors and coped with the consequences of hog waste disposal for years say harvesting energy at these farms is not enough to decrease their environmental health impacts," Barnes reports. They want government and industry to ensure that changes made at concentrated animal feeding operations to produce bioenergy "also reduce risks of air, soil and water pollution."
North Carolina is the third-richest biogas resource state in the nation, "but some neighbors to big hog farms who have lived with odors and coped with the consequences of hog waste disposal for years say harvesting energy at these farms is not enough to decrease their environmental health impacts," Barnes reports. They want government and industry to ensure that changes made at concentrated animal feeding operations to produce bioenergy "also reduce risks of air, soil and water pollution."
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