[Confined Animal Feeding Operations] offer a rich source of nutrients that can be used as a feedstock to grow algae. Most operations located in the northern climates are equipped with anaerobic digesters that use microbes to break down the organic forms of nitrogen and phosphorous into inorganic forms, … all of which can be assimilated by various algal species.
This is yet another example of how to turn a liability into an asset. The more we can turn what was formerly waste – whether it be methane at landfills or animal waste at feedlots – into something that can produce energy, the better off we all will be.
No, this is not sustainability. It’s exactly like using sawdust from housing development construction to fuel wood pellet stoves – that kind of failed because construction has dropped off so much recently. The construction was not sustainable (remember, that literally means it cannot be sustained), and neither are feed lots. If you become dependent upon an unsustainable practice in this way, that’s not sustainability.
But is sure beats dumping the manure in pools and letting it decompose because they can’t figure what else to do with it.
Malcom X said something like, Don’t stab me in the back 9 inches deep, pull out the knife six inches, and call it progress.