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Methane joins milk as dairy profit item

April 7, 2015, Marysville, CA – A few California dairymen are dispensing home-grown natural gas as well as milk as a profit item, pleasing their environmentalist friends as well as their neighbors.

They are turning their dairies’ most reliable by-product — cow manure — into odorless natural gas, which they can sell easily and profitably or use to meet costly energy requirements on the farm.

But the digesters, key to converting the waste, each require an investment upward of a million dollars, so the decision to increase product output demands serious consideration. Financial assistance from the California Department of Food & Agriculture and a few other sources helps tip the balance in favor of conversion. READ MORE