The humble cow pat could become the latest weapon in the fight against global warming.

An agricultural college is using methane from the muck produced by its dairy herd to power its working farm.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6180773.stm

:wideeyed:

The only problem with this is that if cow pats are used for fuel, then they aren't used to return nutrients and organic matter to the soil. To compensate for this, more artificial fetilizers will be applied to the land, fertilizers which are produced by the Harber-Bosch process which is fueled by fossil fuels!!!!

I am wondering if they can use hog waste instead. Seems it's a big problem for some area's around my neck of the world and to see it used for good rather than destruction of nature ... that would be good.

Methane digesters are used at a number of livestock operations and landfills now. They use the methane to drive generators for power production, for the installation and to put back into the grid. The waste left is compost for agricultural fertilizer. It is far better to burn methane to CO2 than to let it go into the atmosphere, seeing it is a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than CO2. The massive methane releases from the world's tundras are over such large areas that capture attempts have been unsuccessfull.
This year the Norwegians reported water temperatures off their continental shelf down to 400 meters are up 1*F and methane is starting to release in bubbles that are mostly dissolved in the water--so far. All it takes is a temperature increase of 2*F to cause the hydrate deposits to explosively release methane.:eek: