Methane and Global Warming

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Methane is a potent greenhouse gas which significantly contributes to global warming. Also called a marsh gas, methane is made up of one carbon molecule and four hydrogen molecules and has 23 times the earth warming capabilities of CO2.

This gas is produced from the decay of once-living materials, from swamps, garbage in landfills, burning forests and by animals like cows during the digestive process.

There is over 100 million tons of methane produced each year from livestock, with about 85% of this methane being produced in the digestive systems of these livestock. And although a single animal only produces a small amount of methane, the effect on the environment of the millions of animals across the world huge.

With an extra 15% of methane emissions being released from the “lagoons” used to store untreated livestock wastage it is vital that more research into combating this problem is undertaken.

Unlike other greenhouse gases though, methane can be put to good use and converted into energy. It happens to be the major component in natural gas so there are many opportunities to reduce methane emissions by using it as fuel. At present there is extensive testing being carried out to facilitate the efficient conversion of methane into a more usable, less harmful commodity.

Naturally given our present climate, there is special interest in generating methane from livestock manure, which would serve to help in energy conservation and in managing the problem of livestock waste.

Converting livestock manure to a form of energy can be easily done with a process called anaerobic fermentation or anaerobic digestion. This extraction process to convert methane to a bio-gas has been in use for quite some time and the technology is well known, with similar methods being used for domestic waste as well.

Bio-gas usually contains about 60 to 70 percent methane, 30 to 40 percent carbon dioxide, and other gases and it apparatus used in the conversion to produce bio-gas is relatively simple in construction although extreme care must be taken during the process as this gas is highly explosive and very hard to detect.

At present, scientists are investigating different strains of bacteria and looking at newer techniques for producing methane. Investigations and testing of better digester designs and operations are also in progress in an effort to reduce construction and operational requirements and costs.

Thankfully, research has shown that Methane has an atmospheric lifetime of about eight years so drastically reducing the amount of methane emissions into our atmosphere by converting and using it as energy saving power will result in much less damage in the future.

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