Via Eurekalert:
Measuring methane
Researchers develop technique to measure methane gas from cattle
MADISON, WI, MARCH 1, 2011 – Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. Wetlands, gas hydrates, permafrost, termites, oceans, freshwater bodies, non-wetland soils, are all natural sources of atmospheric methane; however, the majority of methane presence ca n be accredited to human-related activities. These activities include: such as fossil fuel production, biomass burning, waste management and animal husbandry. The release of methane into the atmosphere by cattle and other large grazing mammals is estimated to account for 12 to 17% of the total global methane release.
Recently, scientists developed a methane release measuring technique as way of tracking the discharge of the gas without disrupting the regular management of the herd. This is part of a collaborative research study conducted by researchers from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Lethbridge Research Centre, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, and the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Cattle were fitted with global positioning devices to track their movements and wind speed and direction were constantly measured. Unlike previous studies in which a few cattle were handled daily and methane measurements were taken directly, this technique centered on using open-path lasers to obtain a short-term measurement of methane release from an entire grazing herd. For instance in one study, the technique was used to take repeated measurements of methane concentration every 10 minutes directly above the height of the 18 cattle in the paddock. According to the results, the technique developed so well it can account for 77% of methane release at a single point in a paddock.
Sean McGinn, the author of the study describes the technique as a “significant advancement in assessing greenhouse gas emissions from the cattle industry.”
Collaborative research is continuing to further measure methane release from other agricultural sources. The full study is published in the January/February 2011 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality.
What about the termites and all the other methane producing insects? never-mind, I understand what they’re up to, they want people to stop farming and eating meat!
If they start to pay farmers not to farm or subsidize them to raise less animals then this would be very dangerous and irresponsible, every time I read articles like this I feel like there is something very nasty behind these people and the kind of ideology they’re trying to promote.
I figured it all out..
It was methan from all the dinsaurs that cause global warming that caused the ice age that wiped them all out.
Obvious ! 😉
CRS is correct, and atmospheric methane levels are high over Asian rice fields and low over New Zealand cow paddocks. Moreover, the only reason methane is “more powerful” than CO2 as a greenhouse gas is because its atmospheric concentrations are so low its absorption frequencies are less saturated. Since cow farts represent such a tiny proportion of methane contribution, removing them will make no perceptible difference to methane levels at great economic cost.
Where would global warming be now if they had chosen methane as the evil gas
@ur momisugly Carl Chapman says:
March 1, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Cows eat grass. They produce methane. Methane combines with oxygen in the air to form CO2. Grass absorbs the CO2 to re-grow. Cows eat the grass…
It’s a cycle with no net effect.
Any scientist who wastes time analysing the flows around the cycle is just chasing grant money.
Actually cows these days eat a lot of left over grains from the corn ethanol industry. Called DDGs (Dry Distillers Grain ), as well as many other things besides “grass”. But I get your point. 🙂 Do you get mine?
Would this sudden upsurge in interest in methane as a GHG be associated with some of the footage coming out from our green friend about gas bubbling up from Coal Seam Gas and other natural gas sources, that is shown as flames coming out of fawcetts and similar bits of alarmist misinformation ?
Get their believers going on the evils of gas prospecting and then identfy it as methane, that dreaded GHG that will push the planet over the tipping point.
Laser/GPS/anemometer-equipped stockyard methane measuring system:
$100,000+
Individual pilot light system for burning off excess rearward methane releases:
$80-$150
Vegan volunteer for “nonprofit” environmentalist organization closely checking rear of bovine to verify operation and effectiveness of pilot light system:
Priceless
Methane is not a potent greenhouse gas at all! I’ts absorption band is already saturated by water vapor.
The myth of Methane being a strong greenhouse gas is based on idiots in a lab measuring greenhouse gas potency in a non humid environment. You will never find any greenhouse gas being compared to water vapor as good old H2O wipes the board!
According to http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1890646,00.html there are 283 million cows in India.
Carl Chapman says:
March 1, 2011 at 6:20 pm
“Cows eat grass. They produce methane. Methane combines with oxygen in the air to form CO2. Grass absorbs the CO2 to re-grow. Cows eat the grass…
It’s a cycle with no net effect.”
Exactly right. And so long as cattle numbers do not change, there can be no net effect on the total methane in the atmosphere.
In any given time period, the amount of methane added to the atmosphere by ruminants necessarily equals the amount breaking down.
Don’t know about the methane from the cow’s rear (probably can’t be captured), but the cow manure is very valuable (along with other bio and food/green waste streams).
Last year we met with developers for about 1,000,000 mmbtu/yr of methane (natural gas) from dairy waste and they wanted $11/mmbtu for the gas. If it were closer to natural gas prices ($5-6/mmbtu) at about $8/mmbtu, I would be interested in buying all that they could produce. A 7000 to 8000 heat rate engine would produce renewable energy at about $68-80/MWH. Due to the current depression, the current market is only $50-60/MWH but over the next 20-30 years this is a definite winner.
Anyone want to step up to the plate and provide cow manure energy at $8/mmbtu?
Forget the methane that escapes to the atmosphere.
More from the field of Climastrology…
So people are not supposed to breath or fart to prevent CO2 and Methane emissions? Does that mean that beans will be a controlled substance? Or do we just have to purchase flatulence offsets?
Look all your critics and other flat earthers – have you no imagination?
Just think!
How would you act if you had the education and the skill and the grant money to carry out this most complicated study?
How could you not excercise such skill and spend all those beans?
It’s like asking a Formula One driver not to race cars round and round in circles.
Or a concert pianist, not to thump the ivories.
To what purpose is all this activity, some of you may ask?
Well none at all, that’s just the point.
But it sure beats just sitting and waiting to collect you old age pension, before you die.
Oh yes, obligitory /sarc off / in case you don’t get my feeble humour/ humor /humur or whatever.
@P.F. – You simply don’t understand, the American Bison and Elk are not human related activity (if you don’t count them being driven to near extinction), therefore they fart sunshine and rainbows.
I have heard it posited that the now extinct Unicorn farted the pure stuff of life, but as that is CO2 that can’t be right.
If the earlier figure quoted above of ~1700 ppb for atmospheric methane is correct, researchers are worrying about the impact of a trace gas whose presence in the atmosphere is so small it can only be called a trace of a trace gas?
The mind boggles…. Haven’t they anything more productive to do?
Y’all don’t know yer ruminants. Most bovine methane comes out the front end, not the back end of cattle. Useless trivia, I know. It pretty much doesn’t matter where atmospheric CH4 comes from. There’s not a damn thing we can do about it and, like CO2…it just doesn’t matter. What DOES matter is that taxpayers are funding this nonsense research.
I saw a documentary a while back with some marine biologist who looked to be in her late 20s. She was in a research vessel off the coast of California and was warning of global warming causing the release of methane hydrates from the ocean floor which would then, of course, cause even MORE global warming. All I could think about was the spectacular waste of government funding I was witnessing. The school scored big with the grant. The biology department benefited. The fuzzy brained young grad student got to take boats rides out in the ocean, take measurements, write a ridiculous thesis about a non-existent problem and probably earn her Ph.D. and set about starting a career in academia. For this I pay taxes?
Pachauri is a vegetarian. You do not suppose….naw, that would be too cynical!
Methane is a by-product of Solar Energy in photosynthesis. It is merely a storage medium until the energy is released.
Energy is neither created nor destroyed in the creation of methane and subsequent release.
That energy comes from fusion in the Sun.
The only alarming thing about Methane is it’s UEL and PEL, and the fact that many worry needlessly over one of natures clean-energy storage schemes.
Lignite. Now that’s a very dirty fuel with an ash problem. Best used in Coal-to-liquids process.
John in NZ says:
March 1, 2011 at 7:45 pm
According to http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1890646,00.html there are 283 million cows in India.
______________________________________________________
Imagine what a formidable force India would be if all them Indians figured out that there’s good eatin’ and extremely high quality protein right there on the hoof! I understand…we probably have almost as many sacred cows in US government.
Imagine if this much time, effort and money were directed toward REAL research, perhaps cancer cures…or maybe even Delusional Disorders, but I digress! /sarc
you can’t tax farmers for their GHG releases if you can’t measure. Note that these studies were done in Aus and Aus is about to introduce a “Carbon price”. The Greens want to include farming in paying for the carbon price. You can’t tax it if you cant measure it 🙁
The world has more termites (by weight) than cattle, and they emit more methane. And we can’t milk them or eat them.
So how about a termite bounty – a cash payment for anybody who brings in a pair of termite ears.
Animals save the planet => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIforUNXrUQ
I like this one => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kocZ-j-o3I&playnext=1&list=PL3EA70F8E1D7D7524
“…Cattle were fitted with global positioning devices to track their movements and wind speed and direction were constantly measured….”
Josh does such a great dragon….Can’t imagine what he’d come up with for a high-tech fitted-up science cow….
But wait till PASCO comes up with the Methane Cow kit. I’m so excited!