ComputerWorld reports that  HP (NYSE: HPQ) researchers presented a paper (PDF)  on using cow manure to generate power to run a data center. HP says that manure from dairy farms. cattle feedlots and other “digested farm waste” can be used to generate electricity.

HP engineers calculated in a presentation to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Conference on Energy Sustainability that biogas from a farm of 10,000 dairy cows could power a 1 megawatt (MW) data center, about 1,000 servers or the equivalent of a small bnks computing center.  Organic matter is already used by farms to generate power through a process called anaerobic digestion that produces a methane rich biogas. HP’s paper looks at how the process could be extended to run a data center, starting with the amount of manure produced by your typical dairy cow and working up from there.

But there are some practical problems, not the least of which is connecting a data center to the cows. “What’s the reality of getting 10,000 cows in once place?” said Angie McEliece, an environmental consultant for RCM Internationall in Berkeley, CA, which makes digester systems. The average size dairy farm in the U.S. includes less than 1,000 cows; farms with 5,000 cows is quite unusual, she told ComputerWorld. Farms that now use anaerobic digestion system to generate electricity and heat typically get some funding from federal and state grants. In such cases, a payback of four years or less on the technology is likely. 10 years is the payback tome without grants, said McEliece in the ComputerWorld article.

HP insists that this just an idea sketched out on paper by a research team; no demonstration project has yet been planned. “I’ve not yet submitted a purchase order for cows,” said Tom Christian, an HP researcher, in an e-mail to ComputerWorld. “The idea of using animal waste to generate energy has been around for centuries, with manure being used every day in remote villages to generate heat for cooking. The new idea that we are presenting in this research is to create a symbiotic relationship between farms and the IT ecosystem that can benefit the farm, the data center and the environment.” say Tom Christian, principal research scientist, Sustainable IT Ecosystem Lab, HP.

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The proposal has energy independence,economic and ecological benefits.

Michigan had 335,000 cows in 2007 and according to the HP researchers, the manure that one dairy cow produces in a day can generate 3.0 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electrical energy. Michigan diary cows could produce enough methane to move 366.825 MWh off the grid under this plan. That would be enough electrical power to move all of Facebook’s estimated 30,000 servers off of the grid.

There are economic benefits as well. Data center operators would have access to a reliable source of clean energy, presumably at a competitive if not lower cost than what’s on the market. Dairy farmers would make money selling electricity to data center customers. HP estimates that dairy farmers would break even in costs within the first two years of using this  system and then earn roughly $2 million annually from selling the power to data center customers.Michael Kanellos, editor in chief at Greentech Media, a research and publishing firm told the New York  Times that there was some convenient overlap between data centers and biogas generation. “Computing equipment produces a lot of heat as a waste product, and the systems needed to create biogas require heat. So, there is a virtuous cycle of sorts possible.” he says.

Another trend that makes the idea of turning organic waste into usable power for data centers is the move to build facilities in rural locations, where high-speed networks allow them to take advantage of the cost advantages of such areas. Since many agricultural areas are also ideal for wind farms, a second clean energy source is available and could lead to some economic revival in the U.S.

Alternate energy sources such as these can help prepare for a new round of regulation and taxes, such as the United States’ Waxman Markey bill. Carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems both in the U.S. and abroad will force companies to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers will benefit from the proposed system by accumulating carbon offsets for capturing and reusing methane.

There’s also environmental benefits: A system that extracts biogas from manure would cut the hefty environmental impact of animal waste. The HP papers says methane is 21 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. Additionally, farmers will benefit from carbon offsets they could receive for capturing and reusing methane under any future cap-and-trade emissions legislation.