One promising technology is direct combustion in an advanced gas turbine to run a generator and produce electricity. This process is twice as efficient as simply burning raw biomass to produce electricity from steam. Researchers are also developing small, high-speed generators to run on biogas. Several companies are also considering converting gasified biomass into ethanol as a less expensive alternative to fermentation. Alternatively, biogas can be processed into hydrogen or methanol, which can then be chemically converted to electricity in a highly efficient fuel cell.
Fuel cells can be large enough to power an entire farm or small enough to power a car or tractor.
An innovative experiment in Missouri provides one example of the possibilities. Corn is used to produce ethanol, and the waste from the process is fed to cows for dairy production. Cow manure fertilizes the corn and is also run through a digester to produce biogas. A fuel cell efficiently converts the biogas into electricity to run the operation. The end products are ethanol, electricity, and milk.