The tour of the Hilmar Cheese Factory was less exciting then I expected it to be. It was again a tour more deemed for an elementary school group them college kids. It was pretty much the exact talk that Mike gave us the night before. It was cool to be in the countries largest cheese factory but thats about as good as it got. They did not even make very cool cheeses. Just normal cheese like cheddar, colby and pepper jack. It was still crazy to hear that they produce over 1.5 million pounds of cheese a day. I was confused at why I have never heard of Hilmar, and that was because they do not sell their cheese in supermarkets. They sell itin bulk, only putting their name on it for the factories gift store. I do not know why but I never connected whey protein powder as the same thing as whey from milk. But they say that they do not only make cheese here they also use to the whey to make supplements and they use the extra water to clean the plant and to irrigate the property, which I thought was pretty smart. We then stopped at the gift store sampled some cheese and head out.
The next stop was a quick stop to talk about the irrigation canals that they have been using for hundreds of years. A lot of the land in the midwest is irrigated using these irrigation canals. They are cement line canals that flow along the property and have pumps which the farmers can use to irrigate their property. The problem is that they are highly inefficient, they are cement lined so that no warm can seep back into the soil but they are not covered so the blistered 120 degree temperatures out there evaporate off a lot of the water. Also with any open body of water animals can fall in an die or chemicals can be spilled into it and contaminate the entire water supply. The main problem with this canals is more with water management. Each farmer is allocated a certain amount of water. If they use it they are fine, but if they use less water, in the future they will be allocated less. The problem with that is in dry years where less water is available those people that did not waste water will have they water supply limited and it may not be enough water to support their crops but the people that have been wasting their water have plenty of water to support themselves. So a large amount of the water is wasted each year because farmer use flood irrigation instead of practicing efficient irrigation techniques. This is frustrating because a lot of people complain about water shortages and the farmers are wasting countless amounts of water each year.
Last stop of the day was to a dairy farm with a methane digester on the property. This was very interesting to see but had a terrible stench. It was cool to see so many different ways to make electricity. This facility produces about 500 kilowatts of power, which is enough to power his whole farm and sells some back to the power company, but is limited. Right now he uses animal manure and any organic waste from the farm, he is not allowed to use waste from other farms yet because of regulations but he says that with new parts and the extra waste he could easily produce 2 megawatts of power. That would make the facility cost effective because right now it still costs him money to run and has been operational for about 2 years. With the amount of electricity he is making his farm his is regulated as a utility company.
The digester works but taking the fresh cow manure and keeping it heated to between 100 and 102 degrees to make it the same temperature as the inside of the cow. This temperature keeps the bacteria inside under natural conditions so that they continue to produce methane. The methane is then trapped and then burned in a generator, creating electricity.
Picture Citations:
"Hilmar Cheese." Hilmar Cheese Company. Our products. Web. 2011.
http://www.hilmarcheese.com/uploadedImages/Content/Section_Content_Units/Products/products1.jpg
"Irrigation Canal." James S. Alber. Emporia State University. Web. 2009.
http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/wetland/canal/sand1.jpg
"Methane Digester." The Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living. Anaerobic digester. Web. 2011.
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/anaerobic_digester_diagram.jpg
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