Indiana's Fair Oaks Farms will complete its switch this summer from fossil fuels to a renewable fuel made from cow manure, reported The Times of Northwest Indiana. A cleaning system is being shipped from New Zealand to be installed at Fair Oaks Farms' anaerobic digester to to scrub out the carbon dioxide. (The digester already produces enough energy to power a 1 megawatt generator for the dairies.) Click here to read Progressive Dairyman's previous article about Fair Oaks Farms' plans for biomethane.
Presently, a fleet of 42 trucks bought in the first phase of the project are delivering Fair Oaks milk and running on compressed natural gas, or CNG, rather than diesel.
"There is no difference between biomethane and natural gas other than its origin," said Mark Stoermann, project manager at Fair Oaks Farms. He added that the nutrients that remain after the process are being used to fertilize Fair Oaks properties.
"We're really trying to push our carbon footprint to zero," he said. PD
–From The Times of Northwest Indiana (Click here to read the full article.)
