Poop To Power Exhibit
Today my son, his wife, three children, my wife and myself went to see the special “Harry Potter” exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. Trusting the navigational system in my son’s van over my directions the trip to the museum took us over three hours. However, on the way back the navigational system, fortunately, went along with my common sense directions and the return journey took us less than two hours. Experience sometimes is more effective than high tech.
The Harry Potter exhibit, which cost separate admission plus regular admission, was well done. Costumes, items and video from the Harry Potter movies were fun to see for children and adults.
After leaving the Harry Potter exhibit we entered a farm tech exhibit. The first thing that caught my eye was a small exhibit called “Poop to Power”. It showed four tanks and the four simple steps it takes to turn cow dung to methane gas to energy for electricity. There was no one around this exhibit but I was interested. In India I saw a lot of this simple method, low tech, way of turning cow dung to energy. There are some pictures of this process on the slide shows at the Pilgrimage to Peace.
I had talked to the family dairy farmer who lives across the road from my son’s house about this, even before the trip to India. He explained to me that small dairy farmers in the USA knew about this process but in the USA it was very expensive to do and not very cost effective. This surprised me since the place in India was doing it very effectively at a low cost. Exploring the issue more I discovered that large agribusiness cow farms and large waste management do convert methane gas to electricity. However this is not a source of energy like wind or corn that the government or big business has sponsored and endorsed except for their own use. I guess there is not much money to be made in turning cow poop to power, especially since it is so easily available with the average cow producing 16 gallons of dung a day. I will explore this issue more in the Cow Dung To Worm Castings page which should be better named: “Cow Dung, A valuable resource for fertilizer, personal care items, insulation and energy”. Maybe I can hook up some small farmers here with institutes like the “Cow Institute” in Japur, India.
My daughter-in-law brought down a sample of the vermicompost we are making on their land from cow dung. It is looking good and soon we will get it tested.
So naturally the Products of the India of Mahatma Gandhi featured tonight are three personal care items. Two, tooth powder and cow soap, have cow dung as one of the ingredients. Many Americans know about Neem soap, made from the neem tree. This soap not only cleans well but also smells great and has a reputation of keeping bugs, like ticks and mosquitoes away. I can personally testify to all three uses of Neem soap.
The other two products, herbal tooth powder and cow soap need more explanations for Americans. For now just let me say that the Kranthi, Prasad’s wife, pilgrimage leaders and Gandhi followers in India is a dentist. She has scientific evidence that the tooth power is most effective in cleaning teeth and preventing gum disease. Also it smells great and after being washed out, leaves you with clean, bacteria free mouth. The cow soap has a rough feel about it which friends say means it is doing something good to skin. It also cleans and smells well. These I can personally testify to also. Hoverer, I need to present these two products in a more professional way before the can be marketed. For now these items are only available though me.
So from trusting traveling experience over high tech navigational systems, to turning cow poop to power and using natural, organic personal care items, we can learn that sometimes it is not always the high tech way that is best and most effective. Some simple products, like turning poop to power, are all around us in large quantities. We just need the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
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