Get cracking on greenhouse-gas emissions (audio)
By Dairy Herd news source
| Tuesday, December 15, 2009
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced an agreement with dairy producers to accelerate adoption of innovative manure to energy projects on American dairy farms. The agreement represents a dynamic public/private partnership and is another demonstration of the Obama Administration's commitment to curb the emissions of greenhouse gases.
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"This historic agreement, the first of its kind, will help us achieve the ambitious goal of drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions while benefitting dairy farmers," said Vilsack. With this memorandum of understanding, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy — part of the Dairy Management Inc. — the USDA and U.S. dairy producers will work together to reach a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by the year 2020.
USDA will do so by undertaking research initiatives, allowing implementation flexibility, and enhancing marketing efforts of anaerobic digesters to dairy producers. Anaerobic-digester technology is a proven method of converting waste products, such as manure, into electricity. The technology utilizes generators that are fueled by methane captured from the animal manure. Currently, only about 2 percent of U.S. dairies that are candidates for a profitable digester are utilizing the technology. Through the agreement, USDA and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy will increase the number of anaerobic digesters supported by USDA programs. Beyond promoting the digesters, the agreement will encourage research, and development of new technologies to help dairies reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
Source: USDA News
Wow, a 25-percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions? Sounds good. As long as Secretary Vilsack can show the climate-change crowd in Copenhagen, Denmark, that the U.S. wants to do something about greenhouse-gas emissions, that’s all that counts. Does anyone actually think we are ready to do this? For one thing, there is no baseline by which to measure progress. In a conference call Tuesday, I asked Erin Fitzgerald, director of social and environmental innovation at Dairy Management, Inc., what the baseline is, and she gave this perfunctory response: “We’re currently conducting an open-source life-cycle assessment at the University of Arkansas. And, current estimates show that the United States dairy industry is less than 2 percent of total U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. And that baseline will be used in our future to measure our carbon commitment.” (So, how many pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent is a 300-cow farm generating?) She gave an equally perfunctory answer to another reporter on what they hope to accomplish and the metrics that will used. In Tuesday’s conference call with the farm media, Fitzgerald and Vilsack kept referring to methane digesters, but no one could say how many methane digesters it will take to accomplish a 25-percent reduction or how dairy farms might quality for federal incentives. It would have been nice to have had more specifics, but we’re dealing with politics here — if something sounds good, it is good enough. — Tom Quaife, editor
