Methane the Other Greenhouse Gas

Methane gas has 20 times the global warming potential than carbon dioxide. Got milk! Yes cows produce one third of the methane gas that humans are indirectly responsible for. As stewards of our environment we must do something about capturing this greenhouse gas before it escapes into the atmosphere. We can do this with methane digesters which not only capture the methane but also use it to fire up generators to produce electricity. In the thriller novel, Green Power, this is what the protagonist does.

 

How would you capture the methane from the cows? If methane is captured, there is readily available technology that can burn methane to produce electricity and/or heat. It is in use at many landfills and wastewater treatment plants. As for cows, I think the only thing to do is to have fewer of them, meaning giving up or at least cutting back on beef and milk.

 

Methane digesters are being set up on dairy farms. They use the cows manure in lagoons covered with special large tarps. Anaerobic bacteria break down complex organic molecules and then methanogenic bacteria use the endproduct, cabon dioxide and hydrogen, to produce methane gas. This gas is used like natural gas to run generators to produce electricity. PG&E in California is now piping methane from dairies to supplement their natural gas for producing electricity.

 

Oh, I was thinking that you meant the methane that is directly emitted from cows should be captured. Don't know how you'd to that! The system that you describe sounds very similar to what is done at a wastewater (sewer) treatment plant. Very available techonology.

 

Is that bottled up cow farts?

 

Cars will go down the street gooin mooo moooo moooo . Instead of brummm brummmm brummmm........
Logically You could devise a diet that would produce the most methane in the digestive tract of cows> Why not a diet for human to fart pure methane, The you could stick a tube up your ass to power your automobile. Methane gas is a waste gas
Our help producing it has very little effect as a greenhouse gas> The earth itself produce and burps more methane into the atmosphere than any cow or human can fart in a million lifetimes. Generating fuel from methane is the oldest of technology thats over looked. Consumption and balance of energy sourses is necessary.
Funding for start up for such processing is lagging becuse ppl are generally comfortable with current energy supplys. And the industries doing the processing are the same that control current energy suppy and demand. Nobody is getting free gas.
There is enough sourses of energy that if we all use them correctly and spread the knowledge, and the ability for everone to produce their fuels and energy the balance would be corrected. Since it can not be done without a buisness factor/ Since someone has to earn a dollar/ Trade and consume to Gain, The Human Race will fail to ever solve it energy issue as long as MONEY is in the equasion.

 

^^^
What are your sources for your claim that the Earth produces more methane than human and other activity?

Peace and love

 

The issue is Is the effect of global warming related to methane or CO2.
Scientific America Sept 2006. Energy solutions for a sustainable world.
Humans produce more Carbon dioxide and monoxide daily yet we fail to try and recapture emmisions because they have no energy value> Other than killing the planet
by trapping radiation reflected back to space.

 

Let's be serrious, it's not the cow farts I am talking about. Methane gas is released from dairy cows (from manure), landfills, seweer treatment plants and marshes. Pacific Gas and Electric came out with an add titled "Cow Power" in which they claimed that methane has 20 times the potential for global warming than carbon dioxide. PG&E has just started pumping the methane gas produced from methane digesters (using manure in sealed lagoons) from dairies in Califronia. There are a numbers of landfills that capture methane from organic decay and use it to power generators to produce electricity.

 

Thanks for clarification. That seems like a good idea. Hopefully the idea will catch on across the country.

Perhaps you might know an answer to this question: does other types of manure, such as hog, also produce methane when sealed in a lagoon? I come from pig country, Indiana and was wondering if this method would be applicable for hog manure, as there is a lot of it produced around the area I grew up.

Peace and love

 

One of the reasons that it's been successful with cows is because they've found that a methanobacterium species of bacteria coexist in one of the cow's stomatchs and is excreeted with the manure. Therefore it lends itself for using covered lagoons and let these natualy occuring methanogenic bacteria start the methane digestion process. This is what my protagonist sets up in the thriller novel - Green Power.
But I'm not aware of methane digesters being set up on pig farms.

 

I'm all for reducing greenhouse gases, but isn't CO2 a far more pressing issue? PG and E may be right that methane has 20 times the warming potential, but we're producing so much less of it compared to CO2 that it's more important to get that down first--and drastically.

 

Average life for methane in the atmosphere is 12 years. It is a natural bio-product. The problem is the overproduction of it in wet land farming (rice, for instance) and livestock. Other peril is the methane hydrate trapped in ocean sediments and cold regions, that might liberate an enormous amount of methane in case of sudden warming, causing this way more climate warming. This peril has been used to speculate about episodes like "The day after tomorrow", in a similar fantastic fashion, likely only if you suppress major laws of physics and chemistry. Nevertheless, although it is not an issue to disregard, the major role of methane today is covering up the debate about CO2 and driving attention away from major CO2 polluters as USA, because the bottom of the see, rice fields and the poles are not within their territories.

[You're welcome to correct my English]

 

I have recently found that humans, as much as we would like to believe that we have some kind of controll over the climate, we dont. in fact one volcanic erruption produces several thousand times the ammount of greenhouse gasses that humans have mannaged to produce in the entire span of our existance on this planet. furthermore, bodys of watter arround the world release more methane gas each year than every hurd of cows on this planet.
I think it may be time to pull our heads out of our asses and start thinking of ways to deal with global warming once it gets here, ratherthan continuing in our futile attempt to stop it. I am not saying that people should just just forget about environmental protection and polute all they want. Having a clean world is vitaly important, but that is no excuse for egnoring the obvious fact that global warming is going to ocur. we need to stop fooling our selves.

 

Myth: Total global volcanic CO2 is less than 1% of anthropogenic CO2 annually.
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html

Myth: Livestock account for about 19% of methane emission, oceans for about 3%. About 60% of global methane emissions are anthropogenic.
http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Emissions_of_methane

 

I highly doubt anyone actually WANTS this to be our fault I never quite understood that argument...all these people going around saying "ahh wed just prefer it if it was us doing it"...Uhm, why? Surely the opposite is far more likely. Take the pressure off yourself by means of denial, perhaps