Could today's problem of cows farting, producing too much methane, be reduced if the gas was ignited?

Answer 1

yeah, it would, practical implications are a little difficult to deal with, but theoretically it could;

Also it would assist in the 'fight' against global warming, since methane is upto 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, which it would become if one ignited it.

Nice thought

Answer 2

The exploding cow is the alleged practice of fart lighting with cattle. As a cow produces about 280 liters of methane-rich flatulence each day some people believe that by using a tube inserted into a cow's anus, one can ignite the gas and cause the cow to explode.

Methane (CH4) and hydrogen (H2) are the main flammable ingredients of bovine intestinal gas. The oxidation of one part of methane requires two parts of oxygen. In contrast, burning hydrogen requires much less oxygen:

CH4 + 2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O
2H2 + O2 → 2H2O
Some people claim gas within a cow's intestines, once ignited, could cause a huge explosion. This is mostly untrue. Methane in an animal's intestines is less likely to burn due to oxygen only being available from the ingestion of air. Also, due to the small amount of oxygen present, the methane/oxygen mixture would be too rich to ignite. However, when it is released to the air, it becomes flammable. There is an urban legend of a farmer who one day decided to ignite his cows' gaseous anal expulsions. Unfortunately, according to this urban legend, one of his cows produced such a high quantity of methane that the flame shot back up into the cow and caused it to explode. The farmer, as a result of this, was killed when a flying femur bone hit his head at over 80mph.

Stephen Pile's Book of Heroic Failures presents a case study of a veterinary mishap of this fashion, where the results were incendiary but not explosive. The cow survived without injury.


Exploding Cows in Games
Cheapass Games released a card game called Unexploded Cow. The concept of the game is that the players are trying to solve the problems of both mad cows in England and unexploded land mines in France by using the former to detonate the latter.
Exploding mad cows are one of the weapons available in Worms 2 and Armageddon.
In the computer game Red Alert 2 the Crazy Ivan unit can attach timed explosive charges to various objects in the landscape, including hapless cows, which can then be commanded into suicide attacks.
In the online computer game Udder Insanity, one must milk cows as they increase in size due to the large quantities of milk inside them. If one does not milk a cow for a period of time, the cow explodes. Once all the cows have exploded, the player loses.
In the game Diablo II, during the run through Tristram, if a player clicks a dead cow, it will expode and deal major damage.
In the game Destroy All Humans!, many levels featured radioactive cows that would explode if thrown or shot.
In the game Conker's Bad Fur Day on the Nintendo 64, Conker must use cows to create a large pile of poo to use. After the cows have finished pooing from drinking Prune Juice, Conker must steer a mad bull into the Cows making them explode.

Answer 3

Methane is CH4. When it is ignited it reacts with the oxygen in the air to produce carbon dioxide and water.

CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O

Both methane and carbon dioxide are green house gases, however methane is about twenty times stronger a green house gas than carbon dioxide.

So you might be onto something.

Answer 4

Not really:

1. you would need to employ a lot of people to light the farts

2. burning methane would just produce carbon dioxide which is still a greenhouse gas so would still create global warming.

Perhaps just giving the cows a daily dose of Beano would help?

Answer 5

It's nice to see someone tackling the real issues. I think this will go down in history as the problem of our generation that we we need to take care of now or our children and our children's children will be doomed and wonder why we didn't fix the cow farting problem when we had a fighting chance.

Answer 6

Please take the proper precautions in doing so.

There is a farmer who one day decided to ignite his cows' gaseous anal expulsions. Unfortunately, one of his cows produced such a high quantity of methane that the flame shot back up into the cow and caused it to explode. The farmer, as a result of this, was killed when a flying femur bone hit his head at over 80mph.

Answer 7

I reckon if those complainers placed their minds to it they could arise with a thank you to recycle all this gasoline they are occurring approximately. people underestimate the performance of a cow - an entire production unit as a dairy cow.....for sure they'll produce pollution and waste. perhaps they could desire to seem closer to homestead at most of the guy made pollution that are what's particularly destroying our planet.

Answer 8

Reminds me when we went camping and the farmer had fence an area off for us and he let the cows into the rest of the field early in the mornings, it certainly made a difference to the dawn choruses we were used to.

Answer 9

The methane production would be unaffected. The cows would still fart, hence the problem of cows farting would remain.

Answer 10

In G.W.country thats Texas you know they had been
useing that gas for tractors .Now you all know G.W. came to Washington and he brought a hell of lot of gas with him.
Well it wont help the methane problem but spreads it all over the world //////////////