Cow Power: NYS Dairy sets ambitious goals for anaerobic digestion

A featured story this month in the Innovation Center for US Dairy news was a recent Dairy Power Summit in Syracuse, New York, with sponsorship from GE Energy. The summit focused on improving the economic viability and increasing the adoption of anaerobic digesters on New York dairy farms.

Summit attendees set a 2020 goal that 40 percent of all manure from New York dairy farms will go through the anaerobic digestion process, which captures methane from manure and generates clean, renewable energy. The energy produced from this effort could power 32,000 homes while strengthening the economic vitality of New York’s dairy farms. It also would reduce New York’s greenhouse gas emissions by 500,000 metric tons of carbon, equivalent to taking 100,000 cars off the road.

The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, with sponsorship from GE Energy, coordinated the Dairy Power Summit in order to identify and act on opportunities to increase the economic viability and adoption rate of anaerobic digesters.  Participants represented dairy farms; utilities; milk cooperatives; digester developers; financial institutions; academia; and local, state and federal governments.
Numerous projects to achieve that goal are being explored and moving forward. For more information about the project, read the press release and to get involved, email the New York Committee.