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No. This process is 100% carbon neutral. It recycles the carbon already in the pig manure as opposed to natural gas which is a fossil fuel and adds to the carbo

No. This process is 100% carbon neutral. It recycles the carbon already in the pig manure as opposed to natural gas which is a fossil fuel and adds to the carbon cycle.

masklinn 10y ago
The main question to me would be how much becomes atmopheric from raw pig manure versus digester.
- fastbeef 10y ago
  No digester: manure -> ammonium and methane straight into atmosphere With digester: manure -> compressed methane -> combustion engine -> energy + Co2. It's such an enormous win-win it's strange not everyone is doing this.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
rwmj 10y ago
Plus locally produced and consumed, so you're not using diesel trucks/ships to move it over long distances (compared to powering his tractor using diesel or gasoline or whatever tractors normally use).
hwillis 10y ago
Any lost methane is significantly worse than the equivalent amount of CO2. Even though it's carbon neutral, the intermediate step converts it to a much more potent greenhouse gas that is very easy to lose to atmosphere. Without a digester, the biomass will be converted to co2 instead. Energy that could have been stored as methane is converted to heat. The best case scenario is to skip biology entirely and throw it into the incinerator, where it can be used to produce heat for power and almost only co2, skipping over methane entirely. Done right, a digester extracts a little bit more chemical energy from biomass that simply leaving it on the ground. Done wrong it weaponizes the carbon.
- fastbeef 10y ago
  But when in the form of methane it can be used as fuel on the farm which means that the equivalent amount of fossil fuels don't need to be consumed.
- andygates 10y ago
  "Any lost methane is significantly worse than the equivalent amount of CO2." ...except that methane doesn't persist anything like as long as CO2, so while it's mean and pointy upfront, it's out of the environment faster. This is pretty basic climate science that routinely gets misrepresented by the denier industry, which is why I'm bothering to pick this nit.

No. This process is 100% carbon neutral. It recycles the carbon already in the pig manure as opposed to natural gas which is a fossil fuel and adds to the carbon cycle.

masklinn 10y ago

The main question to me would be how much becomes atmopheric from raw pig manure versus digester.

fastbeef 10y ago
No digester: manure -> ammonium and methane straight into atmosphere With digester: manure -> compressed methane -> combustion engine -> energy + Co2. It's such an enormous win-win it's strange not everyone is doing this.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

rwmj 10y ago

Plus locally produced and consumed, so you're not using diesel trucks/ships to move it over long distances (compared to powering his tractor using diesel or gasoline or whatever tractors normally use).

hwillis 10y ago

Any lost methane is significantly worse than the equivalent amount of CO2. Even though it's carbon neutral, the intermediate step converts it to a much more potent greenhouse gas that is very easy to lose to atmosphere. Without a digester, the biomass will be converted to co2 instead. Energy that could have been stored as methane is converted to heat. The best case scenario is to skip biology entirely and throw it into the incinerator, where it can be used to produce heat for power and almost only co2, skipping over methane entirely. Done right, a digester extracts a little bit more chemical energy from biomass that simply leaving it on the ground. Done wrong it weaponizes the carbon.

fastbeef 10y ago
But when in the form of methane it can be used as fuel on the farm which means that the equivalent amount of fossil fuels don't need to be consumed.
andygates 10y ago
"Any lost methane is significantly worse than the equivalent amount of CO2." ...except that methane doesn't persist anything like as long as CO2, so while it's mean and pointy upfront, it's out of the environment faster. This is pretty basic climate science that routinely gets misrepresented by the denier industry, which is why I'm bothering to pick this nit.