|
I met Pat Rezin about a year ago. I was visiting local
businesses to talk about health care reform but Pat wanted to talk manure
digesters.
A manure digester is made with a big tank that allows manure to ferment.
Methane gas is produced and that gas can be converted to electricity. Whole
farms - and whole communities - in Europe are powered with electricity made
from cow manure.
Pat had an idea.
He wanted to build a digester small enough to work on Wisconsin’s dairy
farms. Most digesters were made for a large farm - over 200 cows. But the
average dairy farm in Wisconsin is less than 100 cows. Pat knew his
company’s workers could accomplish his vision.
Pat Rezin is the president and chief executive officer of USEMCO. The
company does custom engineering and metal fabrication. Right now the company
is focused on building pipes, control stations and tanks for fresh and
sewage water. The highly skilled welders Pat hires allows the company
diverse capabilities to manufacture products for a specific purpose.
When I first visited USEMCO, I was struck by the workers abilities to create
huge tanks from flat sheets of metal. Because of the workers’ skills, the
opportunities for diversification were great. If it was metal - they could
figure out how to build it - which means the tanks they build could be used
to hold manure.
I was also impressed by the tenacity of their leader. Pat is a soft spoken
and thoughtful man. But when he laid out the design of his manure digester
prototype and told me his story in photos and on his computer, his vision
and persistence came through loud and clear.
There were problems in trying to create a manure digester for a medium size
farm. And - given the material with which he was working (the manure that
is) - the problems were messy. But he didn’t give up.
If one design didn’t work, he tried another and another. If one paddle
wasn’t doing its job he’d change it. Over and again, he encountered problems
and solved them.
I returned to my office in Madison and kept thinking about Pat and the
manure digester. The Legislature is debating how to protect our water; his
digester would eliminate the need to spread excess manure on the fields. The
Legislature is debating renewable energy; manure is about as renewable as it
comes. The Legislature is debating clean energy jobs; his creation would
create 15 or 20 new jobs and allow him to add a needed building to his
plant. I wanted to find a way to help him make his dream happen. And help
all the rest of us on the farm and in the state.
If there is anything I’ve learned in my rookie term as Senator, it is that
nothing is easy. Getting the majority of 132 legislators from across the
state to agree is like tying to herd barn cats. But Pat’s doggedness in
pursuing his project motivated me to do the same.
After months of work on both our parts - with many partners along the way -
last Friday I stood on USEMCO’s shop floor; joined by Ag Secretary Rod
Nilsestuen and Representative Mark Radcliffe as we announced a $200,000
grant for Pat and his skilled workers to develop and demonstrate an
anaerobic digester cost effective for small farms.
With this project, USEMCO will begin a new era in production. Taking
Wisconsin home grown ingenuity and working to solve our problems, many more
farms will have the ability to take a potential liability - cow manure - and
turn it into a source of homegrown, renewable energy.
On my way home, I stopped to chat with one of the shop keepers and told her
of the digester project. “Oh my gosh,” she said. ‘Electricity from cow
manure; is that stinky electricity?” I laughed. “Oh, no,” I said. That’s
cash for our hard working dairy farmers.”
|
