Hi Everyone! Below are two articles about two alternative energies: one on the farm and one in New York City. It will be interesting to look back in a few years and see how far these new resources are developed. Have a good day, Jacob Cowabunga: Manure becomes electricity Dairies tap methane gas, which is burned to create power The Associated Press http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5516359/ July 27, 2004 FRESNO, Calif. - More than a dozen dairies in California are building contraptions to turn one of their least-valued products - the gases that rise from decomposing manure - into one of the state's most sought-after commodities - energy. The state's 1.72 million dairy cows, clustered heavily in the Central Valley, have made California the country's top dairy state. Their milk and cream sell for more than $4 billion a year, and the industry brings jobs and tax revenue to counties with double-digit unemployment. But according to air officials, the state's cows also contribute about 10 percent of the chemical compounds that combine in the atmosphere to produce ozone, a principal component in the smog that plagues the San Joaquin Valley's air. By capturing the offending gases of dairy air, farmers are not only reducing the emissions that cloud the valley, but cutting their own electricity costs. The decidedly low-tech technology also has the potential to play a role, albeit a small one, in meeting the state's constant hunger for new power sources. Manure to methane to electricity To produce energy, the farmer has to scrape up the manure, mix it with water, and pour it into a lagoon typically covered by an enormous plastic bag. When the mixture is heated, it produces methane, which is trapped by the bag, piped into a generator, and burned to create electricity. The experiment comes a time when the agriculture industry is having to abide by air pollution regulations for the first time. By the end of the month, the local air district is expected to issue guidelines for clean-air technology that will be required in new dairies - and so-called "methane digesters" are part of the solution, officials said. "This is probably one of the best forms of emission control from dairies," said Dave Warner, who leads the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District's permit program. But what really got farmers interested, they said, was that the machines literally turn manure into money. Ron Koetsier, who has 1,200 dairy cows on 160 acres near Visalia in Tulare County, qualified for a matching grant from the state, and since 2002 has been saving about $30,000 a year on energy costs - about half his annual bill - because he can now produce most of the energy he needs onsite. Once his digester is hooked up to the local utility company, Koetsier said he'll be able to bank energy with the company. When he feeds excess energy into the system, his electricity meter will run backward. Cow power equals 2 KW a day Methane digesters won't produce enough energy to make a significant dent in the state's energy demand - or even come close, experts said. Manure from one cow can generate up to two kilowatts per day - enough to brighten two light bulbs, said Warner, and it takes a dozen cows to power an average house. Even if all of the 65 billion pounds of manure produced in California every year went into a methane digester, the energy generated could only power a medium-sized town like Modesto. But the other advantages - allowing farmers to save money, trapping gases and other chemicals that would have turned into harmful pollutants, and reducing the volume of animal waste - make the machines an alternative supported by environmentalists as well. "We've been advocating for years the use of anaerobic digesters, or other 'cover and capture' technology," said Brent Newell, with the environmental advocacy group Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment. "It's definitely beneficial." As of July 1, all farms and dairies that emit more than 12.5 tons per year of gases that contribute to smog had to apply for local air quality permits and pay hundreds of dollars in annual fees. For the first time, 1,350 of the largest farms and dairies in the nation's most productive farm counties were asked to account for the air pollution they produce. As long as cleaning the air is also economically feasible, farmers are ready to enlist in the struggle, they said. "Yeah, it's going to clean the air," said Larry Castelanelli, a third-generation farmer who milks 1,500 cows near Lodi and pays an annual utilities bill that tops $100,000. "Yeah, there's a concern there. But this is dollar driven. I'm competitive. I'm trying to survive in the dairy industry.” ---------- Solar power finds a niche in New York Financial, social incentives help jump start home use Reuters August 3, 2004 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5577792/ NEW YORK - Annette Benedict, a 77-year old psychology professor, put solar panels on her Queen Anne-style house in a leafy section of the Bronx as a hobby after recovering from extensive surgery. Susan Boyle, 30, who works full time converting the 1850s brewery and icehouse in gritty Brooklyn she and her husband live in, glued thin solar strips on the roof to help make its spacious lofts energy-efficient. Singer-songwriter Dar Williams, 37, and her husband are topping their Harlem brownstone with solar panels to avoid running their lights on electricity from a nearby nuclear plant. What is it that makes these New Yorkers willing to pay $12,000 to $30,000 for solar equipment and installation? Maybe it's the state's incentives that refund homeowners more than half of that money, or that the systems chop about 75 percent off their electricity bills. Perhaps it's that New York City's residential electricity costs, already the nation's highest except for Hawaii, could rise nine percent next spring after power company ConEd filed this April with regulators to raise rates. Or maybe it's just because New York, like San Francisco on the West Coast, serves as a beacon to nonconformists. Selling back to the grid For whatever reason, the typical solar consumer isn't a backwoods environmentalist anymore. A small but growing number of homeowners in the metropolis, an area not known for year-round blistering sunlight, are converting solar rays into electricity. And in times of low demand and strong sun, they can even sell the electricity back to the grid. "Traditionally solar applications have been off-grid in remote areas. But the biggest growth in recent history has been grid-connected and we believe it's going to continue," said Ali Iz, the head of GE Energy, a business of General Electric Co., which bought former leading solar company Astropower last year. About 35 solar systems have been installed over the last few years in New York City with a combined output of 600 kilowatts, or enough to power 600 average homes, according to Washington D.C.'s Solar Energies Industry Association. New York's trendsetters are in the center of an East Coast solar movement happening in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, that is second only to solar usage in the West's California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Solar users have to think, and invest, long term. Breaking even on their investments can take as long as 25 years in New York, or as little as seven years in New Jersey, where state incentives are among the nation's most generous. While Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry promises to use American innovation to wean the nation from foreign oil, President Bush's plans for incentives for residential solar installations are contained in a comprehensive energy bill that has been held up in Congress. Solar status Along with the long payback comes something easier to swallow: status. Solar customers use advanced technology to draw virtually pollution-less power. They save oil from the violent Middle East, coal from the seams of mountaintops in Appalachia, and reliance on nuclear power, which produces lasting toxic waste. "The progressive ones in my neighborhood feel guilty because they haven't done it yet,” said Benedict, who hosted a party after consultants installed her panels. Steve Taub, alternative energy analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Massachusetts, said, "Most consumers don't make decisions based on how long the payback is. There is a social prestige associated with solar, which is worth something to people." The trendsetters, as well as a few corporations that are constructing green buildings in Manhattan, won't offer massive relief to New York's stretched electric system any time soon. Solar panels in the Durst Organization's edifice at 4 Times Square, for example, provide a mere 0.03 percent of the building's power. But they may be leading a drive in which the United States, the world's largest energy consumer, could narrow the gap with Japan and Germany, the world's top solar power producers. Large, small companies Catching up could mean that more U.S. companies may have to invest in the global business, which topped $7 billion this year. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded energy company, dropped out of solar because CEO Lee Raymond believes it's not profitable. But GE, the world's largest publicly traded company, expects to profit from solar this year, and for sales to top $1 billion annually by the end of the decade. In Japan, solar is beginning to be profitable and the need for incentives is dropping. But its electricity rates average 22 cents per kilowatt, compared to 14 cents per kilowatt in New York, and 8 cents per kilowatt in Arizona. It will take smaller companies, too. David Buckner, a former Wall Street bonds broker, runs Solar Energy Systems out of Brooklyn with another former Wall Streeter. The six-year-old company, which installs and designs solar systems in New York and surrounding states, began to turn a profit this year as solar catches on in the metropolitan area. "I'm getting around to more and more site visits by just using the New York City subway, so I'm very happy about that," said Buckner. John Turner, an expert at the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, said solar won't become commonplace in the United States until people consider the costs as part of the mortgage of owning a home. "Just as houses have to be connected to sewers, small solar systems ought to be in put in all new homes. The costs would be a very small cost of the overall building," he explained. Some are already thinking that way. "If we live here long enough, it will wind up easily paying for itself," said J Milligan, a novelist who put solar panels on his Brooklyn townhouse. "And if we sell this place, I think just like redoing the kitchen, we've added value to the place, and we'll easily get it back."