Oil Rich Texas and its success with Biomass
One of the key premises of Cow Power.info is finding intersections between Cow and the global environment crisis. If the intersection has additional benefits in helping produce clean energy, it becomes an area of passion for us.
On its website, the Comptroller of Public Accounts for the State of Texas, has a detailed report on efficient usage of biomass. We found the contents rich in data, and useful for anyone researching the potential of biomass for energy production.
Costs and Benefits
Gasifying or burning manure is a way to avoid the monetary and environmental costs of its disposal. Producers usually are not paid for manure used as fuel in Texas; for example, cattle producers are planning to supply the manure to the Hereford ethanol plant for free to avoid disposal costs. Similarly, Microgy’s Huckabay Ridge plant receives its manure free of charge from area dairy producers. Microgy has not publicly disclosed the price it receives for the gas it produces. However, as more efficient methods of manure collection are crafted and produce higher quality manure for conversion, there may be more opportunities for agricultural producers.
Other States and Countries
AgStar, a joint program sponsored by the EPA USDA and the U.S. Department of Energy, encourages biogas production at animal feeding operations, particularly those that manage manures such as liquids and slurries. AgStar reports that the use of anaerobic digesters to produce biogas or methane has accelerated across the country in recent years, due to more reliable digester technology, concern over environmental issues, government incentives and state energy policies that allow producers to sell to the grid.
The number of digesters operating in the U.S. has more than doubled in the last two years. Leading states include California, Iowa, Wisconsin, New York and Pennsylvania. These digesters typically produce electricity, although in colder climates they also produce heat for the dairy. Most of these systems are farm-owned and are most common at dairies, although some are used at swine- and duck-feeding operations. EPA is currently preparing a new report on digester activity around the country. As of September 2007, preliminary data being developed for the report indicated that 103 digesters are operating around the country with an energy capacity equivalent to about 22 megawatts.
Some states have incentives for using digesters to produce electricity. EPA reports that New York and Pennsylvania have net metering laws related to feedlot biomass that allow producers to sell energy they generate back to the grid, and California and Maryland are developing similar laws.The Texas Public Utility Commission is currently conducting a rulemaking process that could significantly expand the use of net metering in Texas, as is described in Chapter 9.
California passed a law to extend net metering until the end of 2009. Under this program, electricity produced by biogas is credited against electricity consumed by the dairy farm. In addition, the California Dairy Power Production Program (DPPP) has approved grant funding of nearly $58 million for 14 projects with a generating capacity of about 3.5 megawatts.
