Green Cows: Flatulence Inoculation Developed

While most of us are focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the fact is that methane emissions are more than twenty times more harmful in climate change. Methane emissions come from multiple sources, such as landfills and livestock. Livestock, such as cattle, sheep, and goats, emit methane through belching and flatulence. Depending upon the size of the agricultural sector of a country's economy, the amount of methane emissions varies.

In New Zealand, sheep and cattle are responsible for about 90% of the methane and methane accounts for more than half the country's total greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand farmers already successfully fought a flatulence tax on their livestock. So it should come as no surprise that researchers in New Zealand claim to have developed a "flatulence inoculation" for sheep and cattle. The inoculation could help the country reduce its emissions.

It is estimated that livestock account for approximately 25% of methane emissions in Britain, 2% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and about 15% of worldwide emissions of methane.

Read the full story in The Telegraph.

Corrected June 17, 2008.

UNH To Get 85% Of Energy From Landfill Methane

From Environmental Leader, June 2, 2008

Tom Kelly, Chief Sustainability Officer at the University of New Hampshire, says that a landfill methane project will provide 85 percent of the UNH’s energy needs and cut its greenhouse gas emissions 57 percent below 1990 levels.

Poo Power

We've identified several instances in which companies are recycling animal excrement on a commercial scale to create energy and even paper products. The Dallas Zoo, Denver Zoo, and Cincinnati Zoo are working to turn solid animal waste into energy while Sheep Poo Paper, Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company (one of our Sustainable & Responsible Businesses of the Week), and Elephant Dung Paper all turn solid animal waste into paper products.

So it was just a matter of time before you could convert your own waste into energy with a home unit. According to Forbes Magazine, a company in India, Sintex Industries, has created a biogas digester (pictured above) that can convert "human excrement, cow dung, or kitchen garbage into fuel that can be used for cooking or generating electricity." The unit is reported to cost approximately $425.

Now who will develop the do-it-yourself paper kit?