U.S. to Capture Cow Farts to Save the Planet

[FBM]

Srsly.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/u-s-t ... s/19283942

In the future, America will harness cow farts to curb pollution and power the grid. What? It sounds like a joke, but it's actually a real promise. By 2020, dairy industry emissions will be reduced by 25%, largely by persuading dairy farmers to capture methane gas, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced at the Copenhagen climate change summit this week. Farmers will be able to buy anaerobic digesters that convert cow, errr, emissions into electricity.



You've heard the over-simplified message from vegetable-positive environmental groups: eating animal products is a big cause of global warming. Indeed, 7% of the greenhouse gas emissions produced from U.S. sources are from agriculture. The dairy industry is ripe for change, with only 2% of the farmers whose operations are suited for methane capture currently making use of it.

A Drop In the (Milk) Bucket

Just how bad a problem are dairy emissions? Well, it's a greatly increasing problem -- up 40% in the past decade. But compared, say, to the driving a car or even a tractor, dairy pollution is pretty insignificant. Of the 6.7% of overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2007 attributed to agriculture, 10.7% were from the methane of "manure management," mostly from pork and dairy farms.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the growth comes from a general trend in manure management to use liquid systems, which tends to produce greater methane emissions. "The increase in liquid systems is the combined result of a shift to larger facilities, and to facilities in the West and Southwest, all of which tend to use liquid systems," the EPA says.

Reducing dairy industry emissions by 25% over the next decade would reduce overall emissions by something less than one-quarter of 0.71%, or about one-tenth of 1%, in 10 years. That wouldn't do much as it would only get us back to what would be about 10% more greenhouse gas emissions from manure management than we generated in 2000.

Vilsack calls his agreement with the dairy industry a move that "will help us achieve the ambitious goal of drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions while benefiting dairy farmers." He goes on to say that the harnessed emissions from one farm could power 200 homes.

Treating Symptoms, Not The Disease

I have many words for this reduction, but "drastic" is not one of them. I must leave aside the pie chart of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that is now incinerated on my brain in which burning fossil fuels for electricity (coal) and transportation (cars) is responsible for 59.9% of 2007's total pollution.

But the moves being made to capture methane are neither an effective way to avert climate change nor a sensible way to address the problem of methane production. It's addressing the symptoms, not the disease.

Changing the way farms work would be a far more sensible manner to reduce methane production. In the bargain, this would eliminate the many other destructive side effects of the so-called liquid systems of manure management. At issue is not the poop itself, but the volume, concentration and makeup of the poop.

Over the past half-century, more animals have been forced onto smaller grazing areas. Cow food has been switched to corn and soy from the traditional range feed (grass, alfalfa, clover and the like). And meat cows have grown in size. All this has contributed to the precipitous rise in greenhouse gas emissions from dairy farms and pork and beef producers.

Worry About Farms, Not Cow Poop

The answer to this problem is simple, really, and is there between the lines in the reports from the USDA over the years. One, from 1995, promises to reduce greenhouse emissions by 50% by 2000. That didn't happen, obviously.

But if animals are getting bigger, farms are more concentrated and specialized and the nutrient content of the manure is changing, well, by Jove, farms should become smaller. They should also become more diverse and adopt a wider variety of species of animals that grow more slowly and end up smaller.

Turning dairy cow poop into electricity -- and the pitifully small greenhouse gas reductions that result -- may make a nice (also funny) headline. But it's a cartoon-character Band-Aid approach to the festering, infected wound beneath. Vilsack should stay focused on his patient's long-term health; not this week's media appearance.

[The Dawktor]

thanks for that!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I love guys who practice pointing out the flaws with every system that is proposed. If everybody does something, the cumulative effect will be better for everybody. OR we can wait for the perfect system to come along.

[FBM]

No joke. Waiting for the perfect system that will solve all problems in one stroke is just asking for failure. I don't think my little veggie oil-for-diesel project will do a helluva lot, but it's doing something, which is a shitload better than sitting around waiting for a magic bullet.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No joke. Waiting for the perfect system that will solve all problems in one stroke is just asking for failure. I don't think my little veggie oil-for-diesel project will do a helluva lot, but it's doing something, which is a shitload better than sitting around waiting for a magic bullet.

Pacifist wait for the perfect solution to aggression. They often get it.

[FBM]

No joke. Waiting for the perfect system that will solve all problems in one stroke is just asking for failure. I don't think my little veggie oil-for-diesel project will do a helluva lot, but it's doing something, which is a shitload better than sitting around waiting for a magic bullet.

Pacifist wait for the perfect solution to aggression. They often get it.

Bang. Problem solved. Aggression ended.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No joke. Waiting for the perfect system that will solve all problems in one stroke is just asking for failure. I don't think my little veggie oil-for-diesel project will do a helluva lot, but it's doing something, which is a shitload better than sitting around waiting for a magic bullet.

Pacifist wait for the perfect solution to aggression. They often get it.

Bang. Problem solved. Aggression ended.

Or go with the French method.

[FBM]

Or go with the French method.

I give up! You won the thread! Just don't hurt me or make me learn your language!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Or go with the French method.

I give up! You won the thread! Just don't hurt me or make me learn your language!

Or bathe.

[FBM]

Or go with the French method.

I give up! You won the thread! Just don't hurt me or make me learn your language!

Or bathe.

What is this "bathe" of which you speak?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Or go with the French method.

I give up! You won the thread! Just don't hurt me or make me learn your language!

Or bathe.

What is this "bathe" of which you speak?

It's like "shoppe", I think. The extra "e" is to confuse people.

[Sisifo]

No joke. Waiting for the perfect system that will solve all problems in one stroke is just asking for failure. I don't think my little veggie oil-for-diesel project will do a helluva lot, but it's doing something, which is a shitload better than sitting around waiting for a magic bullet.

Pacifist wait for the perfect solution to aggression. They often get it.

Bang. Problem solved. Aggression ended.

Or go with the French method.

Which is...?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No joke. Waiting for the perfect system that will solve all problems in one stroke is just asking for failure. I don't think my little veggie oil-for-diesel project will do a helluva lot, but it's doing something, which is a shitload better than sitting around waiting for a magic bullet.

Pacifist wait for the perfect solution to aggression. They often get it.

Bang. Problem solved. Aggression ended.

Or go with the French method.

Which is...?

http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... ad#p297978

[JimC]

I love guys who practice pointing out the flaws with every system that is proposed. If everybody does something, the cumulative effect will be better for everybody. OR we can wait for the perfect system to come along.

Exactly. Also, dealing with the manure in a digestor produces valuable fertiliser, and reduces the impact of untreated waste on local streams...

[Ian]

I can't decide whether I love or hate Sarah Palin. She's a despicable excuse for a political figure, but that's why she's also useful: she's a well-known lightning rod for all that is wrong about ignorance/conservativism in the US. Here's her latest crap about humans being arrogant enough to think that we've had any effect on global warming:


Palin continues to blast climate change believers
Posted: December 19th, 2009 04:02 PM ET
From CNN Associate Political Producer Emily Sherman

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin continued to blast believers in climate change Friday.
(CNN)– In a late night posting on her Twitter feed, Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin continued to blast climate change believers Friday, calling the talks in Copenhagen, Denmark a representation of man's "arrogance," for believing people have an impact on nature.

"Arrogant & Naive 2say man overpwers nature," Palin tweeted.

"Earth saw clmate chnge4 ions;will cont 2 c chnges.R duty2responsbly devlop resorces4humankind/not pollute&destroy;but cant alter naturl chng," the former Republican vice presidential nominee wrote.

Palin's latest comments come after weeks of tangling over climate change with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former vice president Al Gore, and President Obama.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Palin urged the president to boycott the climate talks, calling his presence at the conference a "political move."

"The last thing America needs is misguided legislation that will raise taxes and cost jobs – particularly when the push for such legislation rests on agenda-driven science," Palin wrote. "Without trustworthy science and with so much at stake, Americans should be wary about what comes out of this politicized conference. The president should boycott Copenhagen."

When Schwarzenegger questioned Palin's stance on climate change, Palin quickly hit back saying the actor-turned-governor was acting "greener than thou."

And when former vice president Al Gore dubbed her a climate change "denier," Palin hit back at him too, accusing him of promoting "doomsday scenarios."

"Climate change is like gravity – a naturally occurring phenomenon that existed long before, and will exist long after, any governmental attempts to affect it," Palin wrote on her Facebook page.

During the vice presidential debate last year, Palin said she was for capping carbon emissions but did not elaborate on how she would do that.