Clean Energy is a Natural for Farmers

Posted on by

This very interesting  column about clean energy and farmers appeared in a local newspaper this weekend, written by a farmer.  It’s an opinion piece with a unique perspective a lot of people don’t think about — how farmers are natural advocates of renewable energy.   I don’t agree with the writer’s enthusiasm for switchgrass, but he makes other good points.  He’s advocating green jobs, renewable energy,  how it will make sense for  farmers to transition to cleaner forms of energy.

Cows and windmills. Photo taken in southern Minnesota by ST.

Clean energy. That’s some kind of city thing, isn’t it? Nope. Clean energy is a farmer thing.  . . .

Farmers usually have one main source of income: selling the plant or animal products we work so hard to produce.

Here in Minnesota, that means corn, soybeans, wheat, potatoes, alfalfa, milk, cattle and hogs, to mention just a few.  Raising crops and animals is what farmers love, and that’s never going to change.

But farming is a tough business. And there’s no reason Minnesota farmers can’t enjoy a second, third, or maybe even fourth income stream, grounded in the clean energy economy. Sometimes without increasing costs much, if at all.  I’ll start with an example close to my heart. Manure from cattle, hogs or other animals may not look like an income stream. But in the right circumstances, there’s cash in what used to be an unavoidable nuisance.

Here’s why. Animal manure produces methane. There are two things about methane, both of which can translate to money for farmers.  First, methane is a fuel — if you can capture it, you can burn it to generate electricity, for your own farm or beyond.  Second, if it’s not burned, methane is a potent pollutant.

Everyone’s heard about carbon dioxide being a heat-trapping gas. But methane is, too — except it’s about 25 times more powerful. Which means that, if we can just get the clean energy economy going, people will pay you to keep the methane from going up into the air.

 

So you’re making money twice — once from producing electricity and again from avoiding methane emissions.

Full disclosure: I lead a company that works with farmers to figure out if methane capture will work for them.  Maybe you don’t have a large animal operation. But your land may be perfect as a site for wind turbines.

Minnesota ranks ninth among the states in wind energy potential, which means that there are plenty of Minnesota farmers — especially in the western part of the state — who could benefit from leasing their land to wind developers.

Thanks to smart state laws, there are already 60 wind farms in operation across Minnesota. With a strong federal clean energy law, though, many more of our farmers could turn small corners of their land into a year-round cash-producing business.

Oh, and by the way, those enormous roofs on livestock production [...]