News, Manure Raises New Stink. (real estate, farmers, houses, cow)
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WINCHESTER, Ind.—Like many of his neighbors, farmer Tony Goltstein has to deal with the aftermath of the dairy bubble.
But besides his mounting financial troubles, Mr. Goltstein also must contend with bubbles the size of small houses that have sprouted from the pool of manure at his Union Go Dairy Farm. Some are 20 feet tall, inflated with the gas released by 21 million gallons of decomposing cow manure.
They talk about the computer industry bubble bursting, the financial bubble bursting, the real estate bubble bursting, and now there is the cow manure bubble. Maybe they could extract the methane gas and use it to heat their house, or power their milking equipment, thereby avoiding foreclosure.
They talk about the computer industry bubble bursting, the financial bubble bursting, the real estate bubble bursting, and now there is the cow manure bubble. Maybe they could extract the methane gas and use it to heat their house, or power their milking equipment, thereby avoiding foreclosure.
They already have that, but it is very expensive technology, about 1.5 million dollars for a farm in the 500-750 cow range. Any farm that small is going to have trouble paying the bills much less making a payment on a 1.5 million dollar digester.
I will say, we did just vote in this county to cost share FED money for the digesters, BUT we only get around 900,000 per year, so a 70% cost share match would mean 1 dairy farm would get 100% of the FED money for the county per year...not exactly fair to the other farmers using solid manure or who have other species of animals.
In short, their cost is just to great, like a lot of "green" products unfortunately.
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