Dairy Power Sweeps New York – Harvest Power
NEW YORK–We’ve heard of ‘Black Power’ and ‘Power to the People.’ But a new green slogan may be coined: ‘Dairy Power.’ This week, more than 200 dairy farmers and industry stakeholders met in Syracuse, New York to discuss the various ways their farms can make energy for the 21st century.
The Dairy Power Summit attendees set a huge goal–by 2020, 40% of waste products from New York dairy farms will be converted to energy by the process of anaerobic digestion. How big of a goal is that? Well, 40% participation would power 30,000 houses in the New York region. Not only would it also provide additional revenue to these farms, but greenhouse gas emissions in the state would decrease by 500,000 metric tons of carbon annually. That’s like taking 100,000 cars off the road every year.
The Summit was convened by the Innovation Center of the United States Dairy, along with General Electric. New York’s 40 by 15 energy plan is one of the most progressive in the nation–especially since 30% of the renewable energy will be sourced through methane.
Summit members also devised an action of plan of more than a dozen projects to help achieve their goals–many of them with tongue-in-cheek names and creative ways to get more people involved with organic waste processing. Examples? “NY Cow Power,” modeled after a Vermont program, will develop an alternative voluntary rate-payer program for energy that’s sourced through anaerobic digestion. The Small Farm Digester Initiative makes organic waste processing a contest–and there’s a million dollar prize going to the winner.
Read more about the Dairy Power Summit here.
Harvest Power is defining a new path for empowering organic waste – extracting value from societal waste through the production of renewable energy and nutrient-rich compost products that create healthy soils.
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