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Serious question, could there be any way to instead capture said methane and use it for fuel? I feel like if the farms could make a decent buck off capturing it
by donatj 9y ago
Serious question, could there be any way to instead capture said methane and use it for fuel? I feel like if the farms could make a decent buck off capturing it there’d be more incentive than say paying for seaweed.
- lifeisstillgood 9y agoYes, but it seems to need a surgical insertion into one of the cows stomachs so is probably dangerous / expensive. https://phys.org/news/2008-07-cow-backpacks-methane-gas.html https://phys.org/news/2008-07-cow-backpacks-methane-gas.html
- donatj 9y agoInteresting. I was thinking more at the building level but I suppose people don’t like animals not being allowed to go outside however.
- logfromblammo 9y agoFistulation surgery isn't all that dangerous or expensive. The major expense is in keeping the rumen port clean and the cow healthy and free from infection afterward. It's a significant amount of work and consumable supplies, that has to be done by a human worker, every day, for as long as the cow has the port. Granted, a gas port should be smaller than one large enough to stick your hand through, and pull stomach contents out of, but even so, an entire herd of ported cows would not be able to pay for the additional ranch hand work necessary to keep them alive. You need a port-cleaning and health-monitoring robot, at minimum.
- kmm 9y agoThe article says that a cow produces about 100 kg of methane a year. At 0.7 kg/m^3, that's about 142 cubic meters of gas per year. Natural gas costs a few dollars per thousand cubic meters... So even without going into efficiency and the cost of capturing and purifying, it's definitely not going to be worth it.
- haroldp 9y agohttps://i.imgur.com/OUNsvlR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/OUNsvlR.jpg