Letter: Farm energy

CJOnline.com
By The Capital-Journal
Created April 10, 2009 at 12:05am

As a southwest Kansas dairy farmer, I'm always looking for new markets to improve my bottom line. With milk prices so low we can no longer make it on milk alone, my business partners and I are considering putting our cow manure through methane digesters to make biogas — which can be used to generate clean energy.

Right now, Congress is debating a national renewable electricity standard (RES) that would help us move in that direction. The standard would require utilities to obtain a percentage of their electricity from clean energy sources, including solar, wind and bioenergy from plant and animal wastes. Kansas is blessed with the third-largest wind resources and the fourth-largest bioenergy resources in the country, but we don't have the necessary markets to develop them.

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