Umm 1 - 2 ? You don't move the poo very far you build a small power plant where the cows are ... it is called a methane digester. An engine burns the methane and produces electricity and heat which is used to keep the input material at the right temp to keep the microbes that produce the methane happy. Excess heat can be used to heep the ranchers house warm. After being processed the spent "fuel" is used as fertelizer. More power can be produced if you put the cows on treadmills. http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/04/19/cows-on-treadmills-could-produce-six-percent-of-the-worlds-power/ All this reminds me of mad max ... who rules bater town? Master blaster!

100% +

You have a source of wast heat if it is a high enough temperature... you can either use it to heat your home directly or can use it to run a heat pump and still have wast heat (at a lower temp) that can be used to heat your home too.

You can use the same waste heat to run the heat pump in the summer for air conditioning.

It is not just a question of money I can't get cable or sat at any price. I live in an area "serviced" by comcast but I can't get cable. When they came out to set up the cable and internet they said the signal at the house and at the pole was too low. They left never to be seen again. We gave up and got DSL. My next door neighbor has comcast but he says it works so poorly he has written letters to regional managers etc to no avail. The fact is cable tv is not considered a public utility so they have no requirement to sell their service to you or meet minimum quality standards. In the case of me and my neighbor comcast knows that it is not worth them spending the money to maintain / repair their stuff. Who cares if they loose 2 customers ... it is not like we have any other choice anyway. No fios, and too many trees and on the wrong side of the hill for sat.

The major expense of operating an electric vehicle is not the cost of the electricity. Yes, the cost of electricity is less than the cost of gasoline but that is only part of the story. Say an hypothetical electric car uses 250 watt hrs per mile. Say that electricity is 16 cents per kWh. 4 cents per mile of electricity cost. From the article let us assume this car requires $2000 worth of batteries every year. Also assume that it can drive 15,000 miles each year. That is 13 cents per mile battery cost. At $4 per gallon and 20 mpg you are at 20 cents per mile vs 17 for the electric. So while saving $450 per year + the cost of oil changes etc would be nice it hardly seems worth the inconvenience of being stuck with a vehicle that has a limited range and a long recharge time.