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Manure-Powered Plant is Among Largest in U.S.

Coming on the heels of Panda's announcement of several other ethanol plants across the county, the Haskell County plant will be unique in Kansas in that it will utilize cow manure as a fuel source to operate the plant. This project, which is similar to Panda's Hereford, TX project now underway, will annually convert one billion pounds of cattle manure into a clean burning bio-gas used to power the plant's operations.

Panda Energy is quickly becoming one of the country's top producers of ethanol using bio-mass energy such as cow manure to make a renewable fuel. TheHaskell County project is among three fuel ethanol plants announced by Panda Energy.

Did you know?
Brazil has certainly had its share of environmental issues (deforestation of the Amazon, illegal animal trade, pollution), but the South American nation is currently leading the world in alternative fuel usage. According to this article, Brazil has declined in gasoline consumption since the 1970s. Both the United States and Brazil produce approximately 4 billion gallons of ethanol annually, but Brazil boasts that a whopping 20% of its transport fuel market now utilizes ethanol, whereas ethanol accounts for less than 5% of fuel used in the United States. How can this be one might ask? Experts blame a weak national energy policy that doesn't encourage development and manufacturing of flex-fuel cars and fails to aggresively promote higher ethanol usage. (Brazil also produces ethanol from sugar cane, not cow manure. That has got to factor in somewhere ...)

Percentage of world-wide use of alternative fuels? A paltry 1%.

Considering the U.S.'s present energy crisis and a never-ending-war, ought not the U.S. be leading the world-wide effort for alternative fuel use, not following in Brazil's footsteps?