Dairy Farms and Renewable Energy

My guess is that dairy is on its way out.  All the positive PR and advertising (“Got Milk?”) in the universe cannot mitigate the fact that milk products are not conducive to human health.  In addition to the carbs and calories, there are certain mysteries that are reason for concern, e.g., Why are we the only species of animal that consumes the milk of another species?

Also, insofar as beef and dairy are responsible for 14% of all our carbon emissions, the whole cow-thing needs to get left behind.

As we make this transition, if dairy farmers want to generate clean energy, I hope they’ll do it in more effective ways than tiny, isolated bits of solar PV and small wind shown here.  As long as we have cows, there is no reason that they can’t graze under wind turbines that are hundreds of times larger than these.

Since the area of a circle is proportionate to the square of the radius, doubling the radius quadruples the area, and thus the power of the turbine.