What To Do, What To Do About Gas From Livestock Poop

The cows and pigs dotting these flat green plains in the southern Netherlands create a bucolic landscape. But looked at through the lens of greenhouse gas accounting, they are living smokestacks, spewing methane emissions into the air.

That is why a group of farmers-turned-environmentalists here at a smelly but impeccably clean research farm have a new take on making a silk purse from a sow's ear: They cook manure from their 3,000 pigs to capture the methane trapped within it, and then use the gas to make electricity for the local power grid.

Rising in the fields of the environmentally conscious Netherlands, the Sterksel project is a rare example of fledgling efforts to mitigate the heavy emissions from livestock. But much more needs to be done, scientists say, as more and more people are eating more meat around the world.

Read the full story here

-OR-

More cool methane capture plans:
::New Jersey Landfills Capture The Methane They Produce, Turn It Into Energy
::Modern Alchemy: Turning Sewage Into Energy And Money

Comments

[enveg01]

Unfortunately there is an enormous pink elephant in the room. Why not just reduce our meat consumption or go vegetarian? Not only would it be better for the environment but it would be better for our health. And with regards to factory farming, you'd be hard pressed to find any modern day practice that's more cruel and unnatural.

[StopGlobalWarmingBeVegan]

I support the taxing.

[RTIII]

Just so as you aren't all dumbed-down; there's no methane in manure. The methane is created by bacteria that eat the material. Whoever wrote that bit is as ignorant of science as they can be...

During the second world-war, this was one way how Britian survived - this is nothing new and LONG predates even WWII. However, do note that because this has always been (through all of the 20th century) available for us to run our automobiles on, and because it's easy, cheap - basically free - and is VASTLY cleaner than oil / gasoline, there HAS been a "conspiracy" to keep the public ignorant of the fact that automobiles run VERY WELL on methane - in the exact same engine that runs gas!

Here's something else: ecologicially speaking, it's not a big problem with the "outgassing" of our four footed farm animals because it's a very short trip for the carbon - atmosphere, plants, animals, atmosphere... It's true that we'd like to harness it, though!
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[newshawk14]

Bacterial methane digesters make a lot of sense to me. You get methane for energy production
and what is left over is useful for fertilizer.

[joanndarc]

Please STOP regurgitating the same popular myth that gas from livestock poop causes/contributs to climate change.

Atmospheric methane is photochemically oxidized and rapidly converted back to carbon dioxide that was turned to grass at the first place, thus "gas from livestock poop" is carbon neutral!

[FearlessFreep]

Doesn't methane come from livestock belching too?

[pokemon]

Oh yes, just use a cather like they have for horses, and use it to power a generator for the farm. There are simple gas catchers used in Africa to do the cooking. Imagine the power a dairy farm could create:)

Oh and my SUV uses only gas and water to run (HHO)

[tbirdalum]

Just think, with beans, beer and boiled eggs you can power your own suv for free. You just need a way to put it in the engine.

[pokemon]

Hey fellas, we will pay you to eat all the beans, beer, and boiled eggs you can handle as long as you do not move from this seat for 18 hours a day, we provide ESPN, and an XBOX... any takers

[Vickster]

I read about a farmer in Wisconsin who's using his cow manure to provide most of the electricity for a neighboring town while selling what's left over as fertilizer.

[Chardin]

Dad, can I drive the Dungarees?

How about gas from burritos?

[GoVeg]

It's not just methane, nitrous oxide is 300 times more potent than CO2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haYunPpv8hM

[hufSfpoUguyX]

So, we should ban whip-its and dentists?

[joanndarc]

Which nitrous oxide are you talking about? NO? N2O? NO2? I hope you understand that the both, NO2 and NO react with oxigen and water resulting in nitric acid. And acid rain is the main harmful effect it causes.

[twgbonehead]

Although this is interesting, there was a better idea floating around about this time last year. Wonder what happened to it?

Basically, some researchers noticed that Kangaroos, with a diet very similar to that of cows, don't emit much methane at all. The reason is a bacteria in their stomachs that eats the methane, and converts it into digestible products. Cows fed with feed containing the organism required 30 per cent less feed for the same weight gain, and also produced little methane.

Sounded like a win-win to me. Large cost savings on feed, and environmentally sound to boot. Anyone remember this, or head an update?

[pokemon]

Oh yeah, the feed industry would love to make this law. "Just think guys, we cut our yearly profit by 30% and help the environment"....

[RTIII]

I suppose we can't blame you for being as dumb as our author - after all, the author planted this wrong idea in your head about methane being in something: THERE IS NO METHANE IN THE MANURE OR THE FEED.

The methane comes from bacteria which eat manure - and, in the case of some animals, gut bacteria may also create some bit of methane. (However, rest assured that no animals gut bacteria convert all the potential material into methane due to the simple requirement of the heat needed. This can, however, easily be accomplished external to the animal.)
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[karela]

We certainly need to make use of animal manure in a better and more earth friendly way as anyone who's ever driven past a western feed lot for beef cattle knows. But people do tend to forget that our species is also a gas producing group. Put a stethoscope on your own tum sometime and you'll hear the constant movement of gas. We all laugh at Uncle Harry as long as we don't have to sit in a room with him, but the truth is that all of us produce a vast quantity of methane gas all by ourselves. Don't blame it all on animals. Animals don't like to stuck in a small area with a bunch of stinky poop either. It's the humans who do that to them. They should have more room and their poop should be cleaned up a whole lot more often. Poop is the best fertilizer in the world, but we insist on chemical fertilizer instead and leave the stinky stuff to do harm. Animal poop is not nearly so repulsive if it is collected frequently and immediately spread on the fields. It's when it sits around for longer periods that it begins to produce copious amounts of ammonia and methane gas. If we could bring ourselves to insist on more humane animal care we would also be helping ourselves to a cleaner planet.

[Moshe]

I was thinking just try to hold your breath when in the area.

But this suggestion is better.

;-)

[RightWingMarine]

This is a wake up call, America! We need to get the emissions from these animals under control.

It seems to me that the best way to do this would be if we could catch the manure on a conveyor belt and move it quickly to a storage area and then used the methane it produced to generate electricity. Obviously the animals would have to be kept immobile so that the manure fell on the moving belt and the animals would have to be housed inside a giant farmhouse and restricted so that they wouldn't be able to turn around which would thus negate the moving belt.

[TrooAmerican]

what energy would you use to move the conveyor belt?

how about a manually operated poop-a-pult .

The dish lay beneath the cow and thats the position its held in by a pin, and a person pushes it down after launch, and decides when to launch it with the flick of a lever.

[RightWingMarine]

I believe the key is to keep the animal situated in such a way that it's bottom is always over the means used to remove the poop and keeps the animal from turning around and keeping the poop in the pen.

I believe CA recently passed legislation directly on this matter that is very eco-unfriendly.

[Twoogs]

This is the most inhumane, stupidest view yet. The best thing would be to stop feeding animals corn. Cattle in particular are not designed to eat corn. They eat grass and hay most efficiently. Corn produces more gas. I don't know much about pigs but the whole world would be better off if we backed way off corn production then we could significantly lower carbon emissions because of the entire corn raising cycle.

[pokemon]

Sounds sarcastic, not inhumane. I know, why not just grow your own, that way we do not have these huge farms that create the problem. Speaking from experience you eat less meat when you have to slaughter them yourself.

[JuniorNorman]

Here in New Hampster we got alot of cows. The college students make money selling the mycellium products of the pasture patties and i like to buy it!

[pokemon]

Nobody knows what you said. Perhaps if you were using the product while writing they may have a clue.

Oh and as a police officer I have to say that it is illegal and dangerous so stop making purple tea and using the left overs on peanut butter sandwhichs which does not cover the taste anyway.

[joanndarc]

And you should know it better...

[RTIII]

You presumed to speak for all of us and you're wrong.

Speak for yourself, of course.

Furthermore, it may not be illegal - you presume too much.
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