While I really don’t think gas from manure is the grand solution to climate change like this article seems to state. It doesn’t actually make a difference when it comes to fertilizer. You don’t burn the manure itself, you burn the gas produced from the manure. Afterwards you have this black sludge that is actually an even better fertilizer than before because the digestion in the methane production process breaks down the organic matter in the manure and makes especially the nitrogen contained within shift from being tied up in proteins and organic matter to being pure ammonia and nitrate. I have myself witnessed how a local pig farmer increases his wheat yields significantly once he installed a biogas digester and started fertilizing with the pig manure digestate instead of raw pig manure.
If we are going to have animals, we might as well put all the manure into a biogas digester before using it as fertilizer. You can even run tractors off the stuff if they are properly concerted. A few farmers that have biogas digesters have totally stopped buying diesel.
However for the US specifically I think step 1 is starting to actually use the manure at all. You guys have these poop lagoons over there where the manure just rots in a pool and never gets used on the field. In the EU that’s illegal.
While I really don’t think gas from manure is the grand solution to climate change like this article seems to state. It doesn’t actually make a difference when it comes to fertilizer. You don’t burn the manure itself, you burn the gas produced from the manure. Afterwards you have this black sludge that is actually an even better fertilizer than before because the digestion in the methane production process breaks down the organic matter in the manure and makes especially the nitrogen contained within shift from being tied up in proteins and organic matter to being pure ammonia and nitrate. I have myself witnessed how a local pig farmer increases his wheat yields significantly once he installed a biogas digester and started fertilizing with the pig manure digestate instead of raw pig manure.
If we are going to have animals, we might as well put all the manure into a biogas digester before using it as fertilizer. You can even run tractors off the stuff if they are properly concerted. A few farmers that have biogas digesters have totally stopped buying diesel.
However for the US specifically I think step 1 is starting to actually use the manure at all. You guys have these poop lagoons over there where the manure just rots in a pool and never gets used on the field. In the EU that’s illegal.