Idaho energy czar aims to harness cow pie power

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho is hoping to capitalize on more than just the milk emerging from its cows.

The state's mountains of manure are fueling dreams of pipelines linking waste treatment facilities at dairies large and small to central refineries that produce natural gas pure enough for homes or cars.

State energy czar Paul Kjellander, who heads up Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter's Office of Energy Resources, is pushing a package of income tax credits, property tax waivers and other incentives in the 2009 Legislature starting Jan. 12 to transform Idaho's southern heartland into a methane Mecca.

The hope is that processed manure could be sold as plant bedding and dairies could also fire turbines, shooting electricity into the power grid. And they could sell carbon credits in schemes to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

How about this idea: At a time of financial distress, as an idiotic "solution" to a non-existent problem, let's use public money to put up large unsightly bird-killing towers smack in the middle of what is simultaneously the most beautiful area in Minnesota AND the most important bird migration path in Minnesota

Migrating birds and bats could pose another challenge, said Gerald Niemi, a UMD biology professor at the Natural Resources Research Institute. Migrating birds often follow the shoreline of Lake Superior because they generally avoid crossing large bodies of water, and a line of wind turbines could pose a new barrier.

Niemi said a wind farm located on a flyway in Altamont Pass, Calif., kills more than 1,000 birds of prey every year, according to a report from the California Energy Commission.
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“The North Shore is treasured as a very beautiful area, and lot of people probably don’t want to look at these things.”