Being able to create enough renewable energy to milk nearly 30,000 cows three times a day isn’t just a dream for one of the country’s largest dairy farms — it’s a reality.
Northern Indiana dairy Fair Oaks Farms has been using cows — specifically cow manure — not only to power its 10 barns, but also a cheese factory, a 4D movie theater and more for years.
Now the dairy is going a step further, using manure generated by the dairy’s cows to fuel a fleet of trucks to deliver raw milk to processing plants in neighboring states, according to a new article in the New York Times.
Fair Oaks co-owner Mike McCloskey said the farm began researching renewable energy options more then a decade ago. Now, it’s using a $12 million digester and the excess manure generated by its cows to generate its own natural gas, a process used by other dairy farmers as well.
“As long as we keep milking cows, we never run out of gas,” Gary Corbett, chief executive of Fair Oaks Farm, said in the article.
According to Corbett, the farm is helping to take nearly two million gallons of diesel fuel off the highway each year.
Source: Dairy Good