With the farmer getting a miserable few cents a gallon profit for the milk produced by his cows there is another way - gas collection. Methane gas produced by cows has long been decried as an ozone destroying atmospheric polutant. No more! A simple gas collection device attached to the anal orafice of our bovine friends would allow the dairy farmer to capture and sell this natural energy source to his local utility company thus reducing polution while increasing or doubling his profits. This valuable natural resource could be put to work to create electric energy. When used in its raw natural state and pumped through existing utility pipes it would supply the average household the thermal means with which to cook breakfast of bacon and eggs. While on the subject, a similar device could be placed on the anal end of both chicken and pigs thus creating not only the traditional breakfast but the heat source with which to cook same.
-- Jonathan, Nov 28 2000

here is _A_ link http://www.junkscie...om/oct98/manure.htm
it's an old project, but I am still looking for one that says they are using this in Calif. [barnzenen, Nov 28 2000, last modified Oct 21 2004]

CowGas http://www.ees.adel.../biogas/project.pdf
With Diagrams & Photos [PainOCommonSense, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

bloatorcycles http://www.halfbake...m/idea/bloatorcycle
methane-powered motorcycle [croissantz, Oct 04 2004]

Process for the Utilization of Ruminant Animal Methane Emissions http://www.patently...t.php?patID=6982161
patent#: US 6982161 [Dub, Apr 14 2006]

While you are at it (not to be crude), but you could also utilize adolescent/teenaged boys for this. They could provide an "on-demand" service, rather than let nature take it's own "sweet" time to provide the fuel.
-- chili2k, Nov 28 2000


Nothing crude about it, but there is a bad part about it. The 'on-demand' kind are often not as methane imbued as the natural ones. Pull my finger just gets laughs, not people running from the room in a flight for their lives, well, that is unles you pulled the finger off. Also, cows produce more methane in a day then any human could hope or wish for in a month. Ever been in a barn with cows? There is a reason for that smell, and it's not because of the cow handlers!
-- barnzenen, Dec 18 2000


I thought methane was odorless. The scent is added at the processing (?) centers, so that people can tell when the gas is flowing. Any scent you get from the cows is probably a side effect of the reactions that produce the methane.
-- centauri, Dec 18 2000


Ummm...I don't know why know one has mentioned this...but doesn't something else come out of the anal orafice of our bovine friends? How would you collect the gas while disposing properly with the other cow by-products? Furthermore, methane is involved, but as centauri suggests - there are other particles being excreted into the air besides methane. How would you purify it? In other words, the 'simple gas collection device' would not be...well...simple.
-- Muadib, Dec 18 2000


I read somewhere that California is now useing cowgas as an alternate power source. Go figure, guess it's baked.
-- barnzenen, Aug 02 2001


There are projects throughout the world that produce methane from animal manure. Anything more direct I'd want a link for before I believe it.
-- jutta, Aug 09 2001


I've got a PDF file that a friend sent me that has details on building your own setup...Don't know where it came from, though. Is interesting, the author has a travelling setup on a trailer that he uses to demonstrate with, and mentions that lump for lump, post consumer chicken feed makes the best pootage, with pigs second. If anybody's interested in it, email me. <Check my profile> As a bonus, I'll send you a conversion to hydrogen doc for a gas barbecue.
-- StarChaser, Aug 18 2001


Don't forget that a lot of methane comes out of their mouths as well.

The smell is an additave, as in propane, when it's manufactured. The smell out at the farm is created by the other stuff creating fumes in the cows/humans eating too many beans.
-- mlfnet, Apr 25 2003


When I read this, I said, "what's a cowga?"
-- phundug, Apr 25 2003


Some sort of percussion instrument... closely related to the bioga, I think.
-- waugsqueke, Apr 25 2003


they call this " gobar gas " in nepal and use it to cook and for heat. the cow by-products are put into a large septic tank like apparatus to digest and produce gas. the resulting sludge in the bottom is said to make good fertilizer. cowgas is a lot more user friendly term than gobar, however
-- bobenhotep, Jul 02 2004


Most of the gas comes from the Effluent any how. as [Bobenhotep] mentions this is very much gas oven baked.
-- PainOCommonSense, Jul 02 2004


You could also use the harness to power a bloatorcycle (under product: motorcycle)
-- croissantz, Jul 17 2004


And for increased production you could feed your cows baked beans and sit them around a camp fire. (I apologise to anybody who claims they thought of this before me)
-- tasman, Jul 17 2004


The simplest way to get methane from manure is to fill a big inner tube part way with manure slurry through a valved pipe (with funnel). Flatten the empty part of the tube to make sure no air is mixed. As the methane gas is generated the inner tube expands like a ballon and you can hook the outlet tube directly to a gas burner.
-- Imathinker, Jul 18 2004


you could feed them chewing gum and collect the bubbles that come out the other end
-- bobenhotep, Mar 12 2006



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