Cow Poo Power
May 28, 2010
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Who ever said green power has to be fresh? HP is looking into turning something smelly into something useful: running datacentres on cow poo.
Did you know livestock is responsible for a big amount of the emission of greenhouse gasses? Up to 51%, studies suggest. Cows in particular are bad girls, outclassing even man-made cars in amounts of CO2 emission! (Another surprising big player in the greenhouse gas game are tiny termites, but that's a story for another time!).
We can generate methane from cow manure, which in its turn can be used to power generators. Smart people over at HP are looking into using the manure's methane to power their data centers, and relay the excess heat produced there to process the manure into methane more efficiently. Their research suggests a farm of 10.000 cows could generate 1MW of electricity, which is plenty. It's some sort of smelly, sustainable and symbiotic loop involving cows, data centers and manure they've got going on there. That could never be a bad idea, right?
Read more at HP
Did you know livestock is responsible for a big amount of the emission of greenhouse gasses? Up to 51%, studies suggest. Cows in particular are bad girls, outclassing even man-made cars in amounts of CO2 emission! (Another surprising big player in the greenhouse gas game are tiny termites, but that's a story for another time!).
We can generate methane from cow manure, which in its turn can be used to power generators. Smart people over at HP are looking into using the manure's methane to power their data centers, and relay the excess heat produced there to process the manure into methane more efficiently. Their research suggests a farm of 10.000 cows could generate 1MW of electricity, which is plenty. It's some sort of smelly, sustainable and symbiotic loop involving cows, data centers and manure they've got going on there. That could never be a bad idea, right?
Read more at HP
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