John Thune doesn’t want us regulating cow farts; is he o.k. With capitalizing on bovine emissions?
Factory dairy operator Riley Boadwine of Baltic isn’t strapping gas collectors to his moo-moos yet, but he is boiling their poop to stew out fartage for sale as fuel:
No these are not spaceships; they are the new methane digesters at Boadwine Farms near Baltic. It’s taking the manure from these cows and turning it into renewable natural gas.
Once the methane is captured, it will be cleaned and sent into a pipeline to Baltic, where it is distributed as natural gas for a variety of uses [Ariana Schumacher, “Local Dairy Farm Becomes More Sustainable with Methane Digesters,” KELO-TV, 2022.08.08].
If we can capture, commodify, and commercialize that cow gas, we can tax it. Don’t tell Senator Thune!
I’m sure this will get an in-depth presentation from old grudz!Gassy as he is.
So, simply put, manure can undergo aerobic oxidation in usual atmospheric conditions and convert to CO2 (it’s well-appreciated that manure used to fertilize croplands in spring and summer dramatically increases CO2 greenhouse gas emissions well into winter). Alternatively, manure can undergo anaerobic conversion to methane as per the Boadwine operation, and that CH4 can then be transported by natural gas pipeline (assuming one is accessible), ultimately to be oxidized and converted to CO2.
CO2 either way, so no net environmental greenhouse gas reduction. Manure conversion technology in no way reduces the CH4 cattle produce, however, as that CH4 is produced in the rumen. So no problem solved, other than an economic benefit to Riley for creating and selling more fuel.
“If we can capture, commodify, and commercialize that cow gas…” If we could do so, that it. We yet can’t.
Are you suggesting Thune tax the savvy producer who is making a profit off anaerobic manure conversion technologies, or that in the yet-hypothetical case of being able to capture rumen-produced methane directly that Thune would be interested. Or both?