Cows’ farts have long been a contributor to global warming; now their manure could be part of the solution.

Two biofuel companies this week announced they are building ethanol plants powered by cow manure.

Panda Ethanol on Wednesday said its plant, near Muleshoe, Texas, will produce 100 million gallons per year once it’s completed in about 18 months.

E3 Biofuels said Monday it is building a 25-million-gallon ethanol refinery in Mead, Nebraska that will begin production in December.

How to extract energy from poop? The facility will gasify more than 1 billion pounds of the stuff each year, generating steam used to fuel the ethanol-manufacturing process.

The Muleshoe plant will be Panda’s fourth cow-pie-powered ethanol project, and will be tied with the company’s Hereford, Texas plant as the largest biomass-fueled ethanol plant in the United States, according to a press statement. It will also be one of the most fuel-efficient ethanol refineries in the nation, the company said.

“This plant will significantly expand our ethanol production portfolio, strengthen the economy of the Texas Panhandle, and enhance our nation’s energy independence,” said Panda Ethanol CEO Todd Carter.

Closed-Loop Doo-Doo

While smaller, E3 Biofuels says its project is significant because it’s the first ever “closed-loop” ethanol plant.

A “closed-loop system” is one in which everything is reused so there is no waste, imitating nature, explained Ron Pernick, a principal at the research firm Clean Edge. “This is a case of humans applying that principal,” he said.

Aside from the refinery, the project will include a cattle feedlot, making it easy and inexpensive to get the manure. Instead of using steam, E3 will use the methane gas recaptured from the cow dung for energy.

“This plant will make ethanol more than twice as energy-efficient as any other method of producing ethanol or gasoline,” said CEO Dennis Langley. “This is the new low-cost alternative for meeting America’s energy needs with domestically produced ethanol. E3 Biofuels’ system enables America to take a giant leap from the oilfields of the Mideast to the cornfields of the Midwest.”

By helping to power ethanol plants, cows could be helping to solve one of the major challenges of the fuel—the large amount of energy needed to make it.

Mr. Pernick called the announcements “a very important development.”

“Whenever you create energy, you need to use energy to get your end product, and one of the issues of biofuel refining has been the fossil fuel inputs and cost to produce ethanol,” he said. “We need to see how it unfolds and how much energy they can capture, but it’s certainly interesting that they are creating energy on-site.”

Cow Pie Byproducts

The idea makes extra sense because the main co-product with ethanol, distillers grain, is used as cattle feed, he said, so refineries are already located near their cow customers.

“You start to get a very nice closed-loop system, where you can offset all or a portion of the energy needs using the cows, and then the distillers grain provides feedstock for the cows,” Mr. Pernick said.

Aside from producing cheaper energy, cow-manure-powered plants could also help ranchers get rid of the manure. Cow manure is a “huge waste issue” that causes significant problems in water runoff, Mr. Pernick said. Not to mention manure-borne illnesses if other animals end up eating it.

The seriousness of getting rid of all the waste is both good and bad for ethanol producers that want to use manure for power. “All of these biorefineries have to be sure they are using the best state-of-the-art technology to make sure they are capturing everything and not leaving residue or sludge,” he said.

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