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(227) (173) (101) (86) (86) (46) (40) (18) (6) (5) (3)And if those students from Penn Manor High School have their way, that TV will someday be powered by agriculture.
The students presented a research project, "Cows to Kilowatts," at the 2009 Pennsylvania Farm Show on Sunday. It was the second year the Manor FFA made a display and presentation at the show.
This year's display showed how manure can be "digested" to make methane gas, which then is used to power an engine that drives a generator, making electricity.
"In the past, agriculture was known for the two 'f's' — food and fiber," Penn Manor senior and FFA president Ethan Murry said. "Now there's a third 'f' — fuel."
Turning methane into electricity starts as an anaerobic process in which manure is placed in a methane digester, an air-tight container, and heated up to between 90 and 105 degrees to produce methane. Then the gas is diverted to a large engine hooked up to a generator.
Methane digesters are typically used on large farms with more than 1,000 cows.
Brubaker Farms in Mount Joy has been running an anaerobic manure digester since December 2007. It produces as much as 4,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a day — enough to power as many as 200 homes.
Penn Manor junior Cory Harris said farmers can use to the power to run their own farming operations and sell electricity to power companies.
"It will pretty much pay for itself in the end," Cory said.
The students talked about various digesters, including above- and below-ground containers and covered lagoons, and the benefits of having the system, such as reduced odors, higher quality fertilizer, reduced pathogens in the manure and energy production.
"It is common sense to take a very common waste and turn it into energy, if possible," Joe Herr, a Penn Manor junior, said.
Neil Fellenbaum, agricultural science teacher at Penn Manor, said his students started researching the project at the end of November and developed the presentation before deciding on the display for the show.
The display in the exposition hall shows a miniature farm depicting the process of using manure to create methane. The students also built a miniature digester.
Fellenbaum said some of the students visited a large-scale dairy farm with 3,000 cows in Indiana that utilizes a digester system when they attended the 81st National FFA Convention in Indianapolis in October.
Fellenbaum, who grew up around farming and has been coming to the show since he was a seventh-grader with the Penn Manor FFA, said in-depth projects are a good way for students to learn about new agricultural processes and explain them to the general public.
"It's very educational, and I think it shows people that there's a lot more to agriculture than just farming," Fellenbaum said.
E-mail: myoder@lnpnews.com
