Idea of cow manure to power data centers is convergence of powerful industries, journalist says

Seventy percent of Americans oppose building data centers in their communities, according to a Gallup survey from earlier this year.

Nearly half of respondents cited environmental concerns in their opposition — from the potential energy and water use to noise pollution to the use of the land itself.

But as Marin Scotten reports, there may be a new option when it comes to how to power data centers.

Scotten is a freelance climate journalist, and recently wrote a piece headlined “Cow Manure Could be the Next Data Center Fuel.”

Scotten talked with The Show about it, starting with how prevalent it is that manure is being used to create energy.

Full conversation

MARIN SCOTTEN: So to create energy specifically, manure digesters have been around for a while, and manure has been converted into renewable natural gas and biogas. And typically that’s used then to heat homes or fuel transportation. And that’s pretty common; that’s kind of going on all over the country and is pretty prevalent.

In terms of it being used specifically to power data centers and AI, that’s very new. It’s sort of unclear how much that is happening, and if it’s happening yet. A lot of industry groups seem to be sort of like touting it as a possible solution, but we’re at the very beginning of that sort of being a thing, if you will.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, well is there a reason why this particular, I guess we’ll call it a resource, would be good for data centers as opposed to anything else?

MARIN SCOTTEN: It’s hard to say without speculating too much what the motivation behind using manure is. A lot of groups say that this can be a way to reduce waste and can be a sustainable fuel for data centers. So we’re taking waste from factory farms and using it to power these really energy-hungry data centers.

And then on the other side, a lot of environmental groups and critics say that this will actually incentivize more manure production. There’s a lot of money to be made from manure being turned into renewable natural gas, a lot of government subsidies. Those subsidies would then pay farmers to produce manure and digest it into renewable natural gas. So there’s kind of two conflicting narratives.

MARK BRODIE: What is the process like for turning manure into renewable natural gas? Is it, for example, a clean process?

MARIN SCOTTEN: So the process is — on a dairy farm, for example, you would have a manure — we call them a co-digester — installed. To make renewable natural gas specifically, the manure is actually blended with local food waste, so food waste would be trucked into that dairy. So the manure and food waste is digested, and then turned — that’s processed into renewable natural gas.

And "clean" is kind of a tough word. It kind of depends what side of the coin you ask. There’s a lot of people that would say renewable natural gas is not ever clean, and then others are sort of saying this is the best we’ve got, it’s better than traditional natural gas.

MARK BRODIE: At the risk of asking a really dumb question, what are farmers doing with the manure if they’re not turning it into energy?

MARIN SCOTTEN: Yeah, so I mean, that’s the whole — from one side, people say that is the reason why this is such a big solution because these farms are producing like a crazy amount of manure. A digester is not going to be on a small-scale family farm. These are going to industrial-sized farms with animal units or herd sizes of up to 4,000 or more.

So there’s a lot of manure being produced, and typically that manure will either be held in a manure lagoon or it’s spread on surrounding fields as fertilizer, which if you have a regular amount of manure that is not being produced at an industrial-sized facility, that process is really regenerative. Manure acts as a fertilizer.

But when you have so much waste on an industrial-sized farm and it’s spread on fields, it’s just too much, and that can cause like groundwater contamination and a lot of other public health or environmental concerns. So there is this huge question of like, what do we do with manure?

MARK BRODIE: So for folks who are touting this, what do they say is the potential? Could this really power data centers around the country?

MARIN SCOTTEN: So it’s really unlikely that RNG, which comes from manure, would ever be used as a primary data center fuel. There’s just not enough of it; it won’t be the go-to fuel.

What people are kind of looking at it for is, because renewable natural gas is a gas, it can drop into existing fossil fuel infrastructure like pipelines and kind of be transported really easily. So it’s what’s known as like a drop-in energy solution, which means it could make a really good — some groups think it could make a really good backup fuel, or it can also be blended with other fuels that are more of a go-to data center fuel, like natural gas.

And so if it was blended with natural gas, those data centers could then claim that they are fueling their data center sustainably, and that could come with financial credits, or it’s kind of just like — they’re basically saying this is a way that you can decarbonize your data center.

MARK BRODIE: So it’s more of a part of the potential solution as opposed to the potential solution?

MARIN SCOTTEN: Yeah, definitely. And I think just — I mean, groups that are critical of it sort of frame it as this is a way for data centers to claim they are fueling themselves sustainably.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, I can imagine groups that don’t like this saying this is really nothing more than greenwashing.

MARIN SCOTTEN: Exactly. That’s exactly it. And I think the main concern is that there’s already a lot of criticism of digesters before this was being looked at as a solution in that they just incentivize farmers to produce as much manure as possible. And in that way, the manure becomes the primary financial incentive for having a farm over producing milk. So people call it like the gold rush for manure.

And I think this would just kind of open up an entirely new market for digesters, and kind of like explode that opportunity, which then critics say will kind of further incentivize larger herd sizes and just kind of entrench us deeper and deeper in the factory farm system.

MARK BRODIE: Well, it’s interesting because it sounds like this could potentially have implications not just for the energy sector, but also for the agriculture, the farming sector.

MARIN SCOTTEN: For sure. And that’s what I think is really interesting about this story and why I was kind of drawn to it. It’s like a merging of all these different really powerful industries. You’ve got agriculture, fossil fuels, energy, utility companies, recycling companies, and waste management companies that are trucking the food waste in.

It’s just like all these different industries working together, and I just — yeah, it’s sort of all these different sectors coming together to — it’s kind of hard whether to say that’s a good thing or bad thing, depending on your opinion, but it’s definitely a lot of powerful industries coming together.

MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Marin Scotten, a freelance climate journalist. Marin, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

MARIN SCOTTEN: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was great to talk to you.