Marathon Pundit: $7 million in taxpayer funds for cow dung energy research

Noticeably absent from this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article is exactly how much energy is expected to be gleaned from cow dung. But $7 million in taxpayer dollars has been spent on this crap. I have a better idea for President Obama--just build the damn Keystone XL pipeline.

But there is some good news: At least the feds are finally looking beyond ethanol for sources of energy.

From the Journal-Sentinel:

One goal behind the next generation of ethanol fuel is to end the debate over whether crops that could be used for food or animal feed are being converted into fuel. It's a debate that's dogged traditional ethanol, made from corn.

A team of Wisconsin researchers say they may have found an abundant and eminently Dairyland ingredient for ethanol - cow manure from the state's dairy farms.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a coalition of state firms have been awarded $7 million for bioenergy research that would use a manure byproduct to produce ethanol at a dairy farm in Manitowoc County.

The funding was awarded by the U.S. Energy and Agriculture departments through their joint biomass research-and-development initiative.