Manure for Some, Dollars for Others

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Dennis Brubaker on his pig farm in Beavertown, Pa. The methane digester (left) is underground and covered by a black tarp. Photo by Pauline Bartolone/CALmatters

By Pauline Bartolone, CALmatters

Not far from the Amish farms of Central Pennsylvania, in the rolling hills southwest of coal mining country, Dennis Brubaker raises 30,000 pigs a year for slaughter. In four enclosed barns, the hogs gain 2 pounds a day away from predators. That is, until they are shipped away to be processed for supermarkets.

“All they have to do is eat and drink,” says Brubaker, co-owner of Ideal Family Farms in Beavertown, Pa. “They’re just very comfortable, and that’s what turns into growth.”

After Brubaker and his three brothers bought the farm in 2007, energy costs were spiking. So Dennis started researching renewable energy methods to reduce electricity costs. Wind power and solar energy were not the best options. Instead, he chose a system that gave purpose to the 7 million gallons of pig waste that run through his farm every year: a million-dollar methane digester. The 16-foot-deep concrete cauldron in the ground captures the potent greenhouse gas from the manure and routes it to an engine, where the methane combusts, and generates enough electricity every day to power 100 homes and heat half his farm.

“Because of the manure that we had, and the need for energy, it was just the perfect fit,” says Brubaker. Now the farm is poised to receive thousands of dollars as an “offset” project through California’s cap-and-trade program. The carbon marketplace allows large California polluters to pay other businesses to reduce emissions instead of them. The system was set up through AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

Read the complete story at CALmatters.

To learn more about cap-and-trade programs, read the S.F. Public Press story,

California’s Market for Hard-to-Verify Carbon Offsets Could Let Industry Pollute as Usual, http://bit.ly/1N4QPs0 

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