Cows in Hereford are fired up about ethanol plant

HEREFORD, Texas — For four decades, this town has searched for a way to rid itself of the outsized byproduct of its success as one of the world’s greatest producers of beef cattle — tens of millions of tons of cow waste. It tried turning it into electricity, fertilizer and pellets for wood stoves. Now a Dallas company has arrived with an unusual solution born of the soaring cost of energy: Burn the manure as fuel to produce ethanol from corn.

Panda Energy International Inc. plans in the coming months to begin construction on a plant in Hereford that will produce 100 million gallons of ethanol a year. To Panda, the manure eliminates the need to burn expensive natural gas in ethanol production. To Hereford’s farmers, the arrangement is the answer to a prayer, and they have signed contracts agreeing to give their manure to the company free of charge.
Bob Josserand drove by massive pens holding about 45,000 head of cattle. “Do you have any idea how much waste they produce in a year’s time?” asked the 75-year-old rancher as he stopped in front of a dozen or so 12-foot-tall ridges, each some 50 feet long. “This is a year’s worth of manure.”

Hereford, a tiny cattle town on the dusty Western plains, boasts one of the largest cattle herds in the world. A sign on the road into town proclaims it the “Beef Capital of the World.” Cattle are a $2.7 billion annual business for the town.

Wall St. Journal