14 DAY TRIAL // While remote villages in Alaska are busy harvesting wind power and using it as an alternative for diesel-burning generators, the Killington Resort in central Vermont decided to also green up its working agenda and opted for an alternative energy source.
Thus, people spending their 2012-2013 winter holidays at this particular resort will be able to enjoy a ride in a gondola whose electricity demands are met with the help of cow manure, which is to be collected and used as an environmentally-friendly energy source.
Tree Hugger informs us that, since the Killington resort is quite popular, the people running it have signed agreements with as many as 13 farms across the state.
Thus, they are now granted permission to use the manure produced by roughly 10,000 cows.
In order to generate electricity from cow manure, the Killington Resort will have to first convert it into biogas, which will later on be “fed” into an especially designed natural gas engine.
The engine is to drive an electric generator, and the generator will see to it that energy gets produced.
The official press release for this green-oriented project reads as follows: “Vermont’s Killington Resort, the largest ski and snowboard resort in Eastern North America, today announced that it will power its K-1 Express Gondola during the 2012-13 season with electricity generated directly from cows on Vermont dairy farms.”
Furthermore, “GMP [Green Mountain Power] Cow Power is truly an innovative way to create renewable energy and it’s another example of how we continue to implement environmental initiatives throughout our resort. (…) Large customers like Killington Resort with significant demand can make important contributions to the continued development of this innovative renewable resource.”
For the time being, one can only assume that the general public will be quite supportive of the idea to use cow manure in order to generate the electricity needed to power said gondola.