Hewlett-Packard engineers have devised a system that would couple dairy farmers and cattle growers with data technology companies like Google, in a symbiotic relationship, according to an article in today’s New York Times.

Based on H.P.’s calculation that the average cow produces enough waste per day to power a 100-watt light bulb, the process involves the conversion of manure to biogas in order to fuel data centers, which could then be built on inexpensive rural property.

This all reminds me of Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx’s novel That Old Ace in the Hole, set in the Texas Panhandle where, as one character tells another, “To live here it sure helps if you are half cow and half mesquite and all crazy.” Proulx’s novel, whose main character is a land scout for an industrial hog farming corporation, is packed with eccentric characters that will make you smile, nod in recognition, and laugh out loud.

Check out That Old Ace in the Hole; to find out more about H.P.’s research, click here.