cow farts?

Question

If cow farts are pure methane and contribute to the hole in the ozone layer as bad as they say, why dont we raise cows in enclosed pens and harness the methane to use as fuel? Seems to me we could kill 2 birds with one stone. What do you think?

Answer 1

BRILLIANT!

Answer 2

I did some research on this and here are a few surprising facts about methane from livestock.
1. The methane produced by cattle is emitted by them breathing, not actually through flatulence.
2. The U.S.D.A. is already working to reduce the emissions by experimenting with supplements to feed that make cattle's digestive system more efficient.
3. "The contribution by cattle to any global warming that may occur in the next 50 to 100 years has been estimated to be a little less than 2%."
4. Wetlands give off more methane than livestock. 115 million metric tons as compared to 80 million. Gas & oil 50, Coal 40, Oceans 15, Termites 20, Rice 60, Landfills 30 (all in 1 million metric tons). Though your idea has some merit, it would be impossible to harness all of the methane produced by cattle as there are some pretty big pastures out there that have cattle in them. We have what would be considered a small to medium sized ranch and have approx. 4000 acres of grass. Enclosing a feedlot would be next to impossible too as some of them are huge. By working to reduce emissions from ALL sources, especially those we have more control over, perhaps we can make some progress.

Answer 3

methane is expensive and hard to harness. To capture methane from cow farts, we would need to extract the farts directly from their 'business end'. methane is extremely hazardous to breath in in extreme concentrations. IF we locked all the cows up in an air tight barn we would probably kill them.
Besides - methane may be one of the most effective GHG, but carbon dioxide is put into the atmosphere at a more exponential rate. to stop all the methane emissions (sheep, cows, pigs, humans, swamps, landfills) would not make as big of a difference if we did not stop the rate we release CO2.

long answer short - not effective (hard to capture, expensive-better ways to get same results (ozone). Hard to use gas at source and expensive to transport.

Answer 4

And how would that work exactly? Cows must graze, and its hard to get them to fart on command... you would have to build pens the size of circus tents and the amount of methane you would be able to realistically collect would be minimal... certainly not cost effective. We could invent something we can stick up the cows A$$ that would collect the methane but then you would need millions of them, one for every cow... I'm not getting a good feeling about your idea, sorry.

Answer 5

Indeed quite an awesome idea, which is exactly the problem. Todays society has little tolerance for good ideas. Rather we tolerate bad ones, like cameras at stop lights and calling "parking enforcement" a profesion. But seriously, that would be great if we could find someway to do that. Cows farts account for 3% of worldwide global warming according to that carton of milk i drank back in 10th grade.

Answer 6

That would have PETA up in arms if someone did that. I can almost see the signs now. "Stop making fuel out of animals!" "Free all animals held in gas chambers!" You get the idea. Sheep and pigs put out a lot of methane also, I'm for putting all of them in buildings and collecting the gas.

Answer 7

its not a bad idea, it has been thought of before. The only problem is, we dont keep cows in an enclosed area. We actually use cows during crop rotation in certain areas. You cant cover up the fields we use to grow our crops.

Answer 8

I think cow farts smell bad.

Answer 9

it is not cost effective and when cows are pent up they tend to ram things.

Answer 10

how would you collect the methane?

Answer 11

Good idea ........we'll call you, when we're ready for you to shove the hose up their A**, OK?