TULARE, CA:Today at the World Agricultural Fair, representatives of Hilarides Dairy
announced the company is converting cow waste to fuel trucks and generators
while minimizing pollution and diversifying energy sources.
Rob Hilarides, the dairy owner,
earned a $600,000 grant from the California Air Resources Board’s Alternative
Fuel Incentive Program which subsidizes projects facilitating greater use of
non-petroleum fuels.
“It’s energy projects like
this that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and get us off our dependency of
foreign oil,” said Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols. “It also
addresses sources of long term air and water pollution problems.”
Dairy
farm owner, Rob Hilarides, converted two heavy-duty diesel trucks to run on
clean-burning bio-methane produced from his cows’ manure. Using an
anaerobic-lagoon digester that processes the run-off of nearly 10,000 cows, the
project generates 226,000 cubic feet of bio-gas per day and enough fuel to
run two heavy duty trucks that make daily runs. This has reduced the dairy’s
diesel consumption by 650 gallons a day. Rob intends to convert five pick-up
trucks to use the same fuel.
The project is the result of a
public-private partnership aimed at encouraging the use of renewable
bio-methane produced from the waste of food processing and dairies. In June
2006, California’s legislature allotted $25
million dollars in grants to encourage the integration of alternative fuels
into California’s
market. Projects from the grants are now coming online and examples can be seen
throughout the state.
The Hilarides project was
supported by state officials because the process reduces volatile organic
compounds and greenhouse gasses, generates compressed natural gas, an
alternative to diesel, and minimizes two sources of the valley’s air pollution
problem.Redirecting the cow waste to
produce natural gas and rededicating diesel engines to run on the alternative
fuel is a replicable process and its hope many farms throughout the state will
embrace the option.
The Air Resources Board is a department of the
California Environmental Protection Agency.ARB’s mission is to promote and protect public health, welfare, and
ecological resources through effective reduction of air pollutants while
recognizing and considering effects on the economy.The ARB oversees all air pollution control
efforts in California
to attain and maintain health based air quality standards.
