THE SMELL OF "MONEY"

New Ethanol Plants to Be Fueled by Cow Manure
August 18, 2006

But in Hereford, a cattle town in the Texas Panhandle, Dallas-based Panda Ethanol is building a production facility driven by the area's most abundant and least appreciated resource: manure.

The new plant is expected to extract methane from 1 billion pounds (453,000 metric tons) of manure—the product of about 500,000 cows—to generate 100 million gallons (378 million liters) of ethanol, plus ash by-product, each year.

Methane derived from the manure will be burned to generate the steam necessary for processing corn into ethanol.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060818-ethanol.html

Ahhh, the smell of "money. Or, at least that's what the horrible odor that would drift from the cow lot to our house was called by my father. That smell given off by the cow pies might smell like money to some, but others, especially the ones downwind of a certain ethanol plant in Webster County, know exactly what that smell is and what it really smells like, and it sure as heck ain't money.
Since this ethanol plant will only use around 20 acres for the actual ethanol process, then what is the need for for nearly 230 acres at the site?

Is the planned ethanol plant going to be a "closed-loop" facility? By that we mean are they planning to use the significant acreage left over to put in a cattle feeding operation? The "closed-loop" term comes into play when the cow pies are used as fuel to run the ethanol plant. And the cows are fed the leftover mash by-products from the ethanol production.
While the cows are fed the mash and the plant owners are fed cash, the people of both Webster County and the ones on the Ozark Aquifer are fed toxic air and polluted water. With the added "benefit" of seeing their water wells go dry due to the massive amount of water pumped out of the Ozarks Aquifer.

What's happening and going to happen to Webster County might smell like "money" to those raking in the cash from this ill-suited site, but to the ones who have to live with this abomination, they know what that SMELL is, and it sure ain't "money."