[Sustain] MSNBC.com Article: Vermont cows help power 330 homes

[Eric Brooks]

Yup. I have an opinion of 'cow power' and it isn't a good one at all.

First, it gives a dangerous positive image to biofuel/biomass. While it 
may be used in this particular case on a non-factory farm, it will so 
excite the public and politicians, that every factory farm in the 
country will soon end up being equipped for biogas energy production 
giving even more profit to the factory farm industry and expanding it; 
leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions. (This is very similar to 
people getting excited about french fry grease, and then having that 
excitement cynically amplified so cleverly by big ag, that Congress 
passes massive corn ethanol subsidies.)

Finally, and most importantly, the methane from those farms wouldn't 
exist in the first place if we were doing the critical work of getting 
people to eat much lower on the food chain (vegetarian/vegan/etc.) 
thereby using massively less energy and resources, and cutting the 
amount of methane and CO2 produced by agriculture prodigiously.

Remember that methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than is 
CO2, so the more we promote animal agriculture, literally the deeper 
shit we are in; on the ground, in our waterways, and in our atmosphere.

cheers

Eric

Ann Garrison wrote:
>
> COW POWER: very natural gas in the State of Vermont:
>
>
> Vermont cows help power 330 homes
>
> Some 1,500 cows at a Vermont farm are producing more than just milk, 
> they're generating electricity to sell on the power grid.
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6838687/from/ET/
>
>
> The one thing no one's done to BVHP yet is a factory farm, like maybe 
> one to power
>
> those gas-fired plants, right?  Or, did I miss it?  Has the SFPUC 
> already got this in the works.
>
>
> However, I don't think this thing in Vermont is a factory farm. it 
> seems kinda cool.  People seem to be willing to pay more per kilowatt 
> to support Vermont's family farmers in this very natural gas project 
> that involving no digging, no drilling, no leaks, and no potential 
> explosions.
>
>
> I never saw any factory farms when I went to Vermont, but that of 
> course doesn't mean they don't have any.
>
>
> I did see lots of cows roaming around in the fields there, and the 
> smell could all but overwhelm,
>
> though some told me that was just as often the smell of hay drying.
>
>
> I'm wondering, particularly, whether Eric Brooks here has an opinion 
> of COW POWER, so long as
>
> there's no factory farming involved.    Eric?  --Annie
>
>
>
>
>
>
> = 

-- 
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.sfgreens.org/pipermail/sustainability/attachments/20080110/1cfaf05c/attachment.htm