Can pig power light up Manitoba?

[jpak]

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/local/story/3809333p-4406204c.html

Can pig power light up Manitoba?

Farmer using biogas to generate electricity

ST. MALO -- It takes about 300 hogs -- their manure, that is -- to power an average home.

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There are about 10 million hogs in Manitoba. Their manure alone could power about 35,000 homes, Wiebe estimates. More if you stir in manure from chickens and cattle, then flush human waste out of those sewage lagoons and process that, too.

You could light up Manitoba like Caesar's Palace -- with manure. The province might have to change its slogan to "poopy energy." The term "pooped out" would come to mean being energized, not tired.

And suddenly, pig manure doesn't smell so bad. Producing biogas eliminates 75 per cent of the smell from hog barns because the manure isn't put in lagoons or spread onto fields, said Wiebe. Instead, it's pumped directly into an enclosed tank for processing into biogas, never making contact with outside air.

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