Monday, September 21, 2009

Science and Technology Marching Foreward

Here is the best answer to the problem of agricultural-produced methane I've seen yet. While we know that methane is a much bigger contributor to global warming than carbon dioxide, no one yet has proposed a fix to the problem, as they have for the automobile industry. Here it is:



Methane (CH4) plus oxygen (2O2) yields carbon dioxide (CO2) plus water (2H2O) a hopefully less warming combination. Simply fitting cattle with afterburning ignition sets accomplishes this in one step. Feeding the cattle in stalls, while backing them up to a power plant has the effect of producing "green" electricity as well.

Solving 2 problems at once. Where's my stimulus check?

Thanks to Right Wing News for the underlying article and the great graphic.

2 comments:

Brad K. said...

Billll,

Great graphic - but I think the UK is working on a supplement to suppress methane generation during digestion.

Besides, the methane is formed during rumination, and is almost entirely burped up, not . . . passed.

I recall during Bush, Sr.'s term that the treehuggers wanted to blame cows grazing on federal lands for the methane that caused the hole in the ozone layer.

And I still want to see that a given patch of ground produces less methane than that same patch of ground with cows on it, cows that consume only what is already on that ground.

We know swamp gas is methane created from decomposing plants, that sewer gas is methane from . . . well, sewers (Why aren't we bottling and selling that crap?).

Do we know that cows produce more methane, in a year on a given patch of ground, than the mice and deer and other wildlife plus the vegetation that didn't get consumed?

I think something stinks about the whole mess.

BTW - have you read Randolph's book "Pissing in the snow", collected Ozark folk tales that editors struck from his first three collections for being too "earthy"? The short "Cats don't take no chances" came to mind, admiring Bossy in the picture there.

Billll said...

What stinks is the sulfur compounds included in the methane. The Denver metro sewer plant digests wastes and burns the "methane" in diesel powered generators, producing electricity. Problem is that the sulfur causes the engines to conk out regularly.

Ignoring the grass fires this would cause, imagine the beauty of a twinkling pasture of cows, seen from the air.

Might also have some effect on the cows herding instincts.