Panda Ethanol Inc., Dallas, was granted an air permit for its proposed ethanol refinery in Muleshoe, Tex., that is to be fueled by cow manure.“Unlike other ethanol facilities which burn natural gas to generate the steam used in the ethanol manufacturing process, the Muleshoe facility will be engineered to gasify up to 1 billion lb of cattle manure per year,” said company officials. By doing so, they said, “Panda is both conserving the energy equivalent of 1,000 b/d of oil and helping to address a significant environmental problem for the Texas Panhandle.”It might also stifle public complaints about the comparative stench of sour gas from some Texas fields.The propo...