Converting Cattle Waste Into Renewable Energy | Earth Focus | KCET

Airoso Dairy is a family-run farm in Central California producing much of the milk found in butter and mozzarella cheese produced locally. With about 2,900 cows, this and every other dairy in California are facing a mandate to mitigate their large contribution to the methane emissions in the state’s atmosphere. Experts say the methane found in cow manure is equivalent to the amount produced by a gas-powered vehicle. Airoso is adopting innovation to reduce its carbon footprint while remaining economically viable - in fact, the digester converting manure into biofuel has added an entirely new revenue stream for the farm.
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#EarthFocus #pollution #environment #climatechange

[@vandrex01]

A STABLE INCOME IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CATTLE FARMING FOR RETIREMENT PLANNING. Big ups to everyone working effortlessly trying to earn a living while building wealth. I'm 40 and my wife 34. We are both retired with over $3 million in net worth and no debts. Currently living smart and frugal with our money. Saving and investing lifestyle made it possible for us this early even till now we earn monthly through passive income.

[@vicvic1595]

Please do you have any tips for me that I can use to grow my money as well?

[@van123446]

go away from the natural ways to keep dairy cattle and you end up with this very unnatural but necessary process. Oh, how we like to play god.

[@Vidyasagarbb]

Please provide some details like how much of waste comes out from 100 cows per day ? and how much bio gas can be produced from that waste of 100 cows ? This would help some folks to research further and explore it further. Thank you.

[@yasun5995]

I would also want to know about this information.

[@irfanvirji5319]

Generally a cow excretes 7-10kg per day.

[@LyricalMurderer1]

Yes would love to understand the economics behind this

[@radekmessiasdebraganca6582]

The process provides energy and biofertlisers

[@zebrastripes875]

Ya right. Please do your own research instead of requesting he remake the video just for you liberals.

[@renegarbutt6435]

The industry farming producing biogas not only does it help publicly but. Also serve to keep the environmental conditions clean I personally applaud them for a fantastic efforts...

[@NazriB]

Lies again? ES Facilitators

[@oneeight9238]

Imagine if all farms done this , they could run their plants on free energy,run the trucks that collect the cows on free fuel,sell the XS gas to the people at half the price because it would be home grown, and they would not have to import gas/fuel from other countries on large shipping containers, the people could buy a generator and run their homes on this gas . As for nitrogen there’s a maze plant that has a knob half way up the steam that produces gel , the gel takes nitrogen out of the air to feed the plant, you need 1 hectare of maze for every 50 hectares of land , these two things will make the farm a gas station and 100% carbon clean .

[@SilverGamingFI]

Technically, due to the fact that burning methane produces co2, which is a much less potent greenhouse gas (around 28x less potent than methane) it will be carbon negative compared to a farm without a digester. It also helps that the digester can produce liquid fertilizer, which as a natural fertilizer can help in the ground sequestering carbon better (note: I googled that, science may not be 100% trustworthy)

[@tazsnoop1044]

I will say I miss fresh milk , the crap you bye these days just don't cut it like straight out the vat

[@TheKdcool]

How many kWh can you get out of one cows poop in a year?

[@estebancorral5151]

.15 Kilowatt-hour per cow. Do the math per annum.

[@jandrefelix3577]

"Enviromental Services" is a damn beaurocratic scam. But if this method brings the farmer income and is beneficial then more power to the farmer.

[@ianmichel9074]

This is a great example of renewable energy generation. Most people only know (a little) about solar, wind, geothermal and hydro. There are more things like are shown here. Thermal Energy Storage Systems (TESS) that not only capture the waste heat from existing C&I facilities, can storage and generate electricity (kWh) for use on site or sell back to the Grid.

[@carboncarbonx43]

Prairie Pastries into energy? OMG! Roll those babies over here.

[@rickmeredith5201]

Hang on a minute you say a Cow produces 4 to 5 ton of gases a year & I know that in New Zealand we pretty much just grass feed our Cows. I also know a acre of pasture feeds 1 Cow, I also know that an acre of pasture produces 65 ton of Oxygen that's an Oxygen gain not a deficit. something is wrong with the numbers here

[@tonywalker8030]

Open range eh?

[@rickmeredith5201]

@@tonywalker8030 fenced & brake fed with electric fences, Hay & silage are made for winter & sometimes summer. Some of our Dairy cows are supplamentary fed with some corn & palm Cornel for extra milk production, or they're over stocked. But all are grass fed all year round.

[@stephendoherty8291]

You forget that your cow produces methane which is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Its a super gas for climate change. Not sure if NZ just grows grass with no outside assistance but most farms use some sort of artificial assistance to grow grass like fertilizer/nitrogen etc which also is generated with a C02 footprint. That manure will generate methane whether spread on grass farmland or in a manure pit unless its captured. The double benefit of capturing this gas is that the remaining manure can still be used again for tillage farming or grassland nutrient assistance and its volume is cut as the methane is extracted and the germs eat the wet manure. This manure is then less likely to leach into the surrounding rivers/lakes and seas as its a much dryer and more concentrated fertiliser. Any excess from farm use can be sold and even better, less artificial fertiliser is needed and the manure is an organic substitute. In some cases the biogas can be injected directly into the gas grid, used to offset some of the farms energy needs or some farms burn it directly and generate electricity for farm and offfarm cash. Unless your farm is massive, aggregating every local farms manure makes better sense.

[@rickmeredith5201]

The methane production of cows in this country is 95kg multiply that by 25 & you end up with another 2.5 tonnes making a total equivalent of 7.5 tonnes which means the production of dairy is still carbon neutral in New Zealand. The nitrogen in the form of urea, used here is a by product of natural gas being turned into petrol. The numbers still don't add up. The palm cornel imported here is also a by product from the oil. The cornel if not used would otherwise end up rotting producing 10 times the amount of methane. I think the figures of industrial feed lots in other parts of the world may stack up with your figure but I don't have the numbers. If the numbers are wrong for New Zealand, where else are the incorrect. This really looks like a biased scientific study from where I'm sitting. In these studies were the results off set by the oxygen produced by the growing methods that produced the feed. Anyone can produce facts but putting them in context, or getting the entire equation is the responsible thing to do. Otherwise we will cure the problem by throwing the baby out with the bath water, & starving half the planet, before we realise the mistake.

[@stephendoherty8291]

@@rickmeredith5201 you must presume that left fallow the land would be wild grass/plants anyway so that oxygen production is our natural O2 we all rely on. Its not some artificially enhanced O2 production (with cows, that oxygen maker is eaten) . The same plants suck 02 at night and give out C02 as do all normal plantlife so the grassland is climate neutral at best. Its the machines eating the grass/excreting methane/breathing out C02 thats the problem (methane being the double exhaust) . Its oxygen into the machine and methane out using vast amounts of water and maintained grass as most of the fuel (winters lower fuel content grass needing supplement fuel). The vast vast amount of that gas vented into the atmosphere (same for most grassland fed animals but on a much smaller "machine" scale) .

[@Fade007fade007]

Kannur kerala India 🇮🇳

[@blank.9301]

Why can't we collect the methane from composting?

[@estebancorral5151]

Laziness due to affluence.

[@fahimimtiaz2153]

Can anyone tell me what's going on here??

[@nsshing]

In hindsight, instead of investing in plant based meat, it's probably wiser to put the capital into reducing methane and improving animal welfare? Afterall, the meat industry is a centuries long, high efficient industry. Billions of dollar have put in companies like Beyond Meat, imagine what the money can be done to the meat industry.

[@AbrazaNews_Ke]

Wow, I just love the way you're training that young blood and the way he seems to quickly grasp things and eager to be a better farmer tomorrow. I'm motivated to train my son. Much love from Kenya 🇰🇪❤️

[@malcolm8564]

Cattle should be in the fields.

[@stephendoherty8291]

I wonder if the waste C02 extracted from Methane to biogas could be used in closed greenhouses to accelerate greenhouse tillage farming. There are some fracking operators using C02 to extract from oil and gas in the US but their use is small. Would tomatoes etc not benefit from a C02 enriched atmosphere in a "sealed" greenhouse and grow faster?? The gas would be dumped into the air anyway.

[@rickmeredith5201]

Don't know of anything might have a look around, & try to get back to you. From my understanding & it's not scientific, a single plant about 8ft (2.4meters) high produces enough oxygen to supply the oxygen for 2 people. So we only need about 4 billion Camellia plants to plant just keep up with humanities needs😂😂 the numbers needed for animals, insects & machinery must be astronomical. The New Zealand government & private money are put in a planting program, of 1 billion plantation trees in 8 years, about 6 odd years ago. These were to be a perpetual Forest, so in 25 years we will harvest & replant at the same rate. I don't know how far along with that we are yet. Over the last 15 years we as a country of 3 million allowed about 2 million people in & the havoc it's created, has caused massive infrastructure problems. The government didn't plan or increase the size of our infrastructure, this has caused a major shortage in housing, roading, hospitals, & the like. Now we have a massive catch up building program on the go. I boggle to think what it's doing to our CO2 levels I personally believe that the planet is over populated. I remember one of my science teachers saying in the 1960s that the planet was only capable of sustaining a billion people. I remember thinking what an idiot, now I wonder if he was ahead of his time 😲😂😂

[@stephendoherty8291]

@@rickmeredith5201 the thing about population limits is which population gets limited. China had limits and the result was a massive male vs female disproportionate population change. The result of which was females being bought as brides, fewer women having (likely correct) high standards for a suitor leaving many poorer rural areas even more devoid if a healthy female population and some women being matched/(sold) for a unsustainable price. Should it not be populations with the highest consumption levels per person ie highly developed western countries. Many already suffer from declining birth rates. Many expanding populations are happening as an investment due to high infant mortality rates, high death rates, no social safety net to care for elderly relatives and less community support trends. Who will pay to allow for smaller families that can flourish and be sustainable. As for the 60's and 70's doomsday prediction, that was potential global famine but newer farming techniques and crops avoided that being the norm in an expanded population.

[@AngryTango]

Sustainability is possible

[@shaneintegra]

This dairy can do it... 99.9% of the other Dairys need BILLIONS of dollars to do the same lol

[@MichaelSkinner-e9j]

The same processes for the milk industry to process all that cattle waste into gas and other products, can be put to good use in India, and other countries that need it.

[@kevinpoole4323]

Cost too much

[@meeranraees3183]

0:11

[@borisbeloudus2691]

I was thinking what if we dig huge man-made ponds and set up a large tarp that can fit over the top for pumping out natural gas from raw sewage? Basically farming natural gas reserves?

[@stephendoherty8291]

I think Airoso is not seeing the bigger benefit. As water supply is cut back in CA, other income sources will become more valuable as a secondary income. Apart from cutting back on waste treatment measures, the output of the farm (beyond milk and some meat) is : Natural gas (to run the farm machinery, sell to other local farms) and inject into either the nearest gas grid pipeline or burn as electricity and sell to the grid. If some is burnt, there is some waste low temp heat which can find some use on the farm. The waste product beyond the gas extracted, can be used as farm fertiliser, offsetting some imported fertiliser bills. It would be an ideal use for the extra income for the local farms to invest in a shareholding of any biodigester. Its making NG, it can also generate water and even Carbon dioxide for use in the food preservation and drinks industry. IN an ideal world the NG would be sold as a transport fuel vs burning it all, as transport fuels are so much more expensive to the user than the cost of electricity they buy.

[@estebancorral5151]

You are correct on all counts. Furthermore, the left over digestate can be fed to compost worms which produce more worms and worm castings. The worms could be sold for feed for poultry, pigs, and fish. The worms casting is a fertilizer which retains moisture also important in a drought. The manure could also be used as a substrate for mushroom production.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

They're banning new natural gas hookups in California, so it seems that biogas will suffer a syndrome of shrinking markets. Also, biogas has to be upgraded if it is to ever be injected directly into the gas grid, which means that dairy farmers would have to enter the chemical industry and purchase gas scrubbing plants. If all this was cost effective, it would already be being done by market forces. Smaller scale cattle farms will be hit the worst.

[@stephendoherty8291]

@@gregorymalchuk272 most farms could just burn the biogas for self consumption. Most need heat and power. More power could be consumed by electric farm machinery vs current fossil fuels. That manure rotting releases methane so burning it is better than venting it into the air. As for injecting it and cleaning the methane before that. Gas as a fuel might have an end date but thats a LONG way from now. Gas suppliers will find favourable views on helping farm incomes, cutting the carbon footprint of gas and sourcing it more locally. Like a co-op, farmers can aggregate the manure to a local central processing plant vs individually doing it. It also generates greener farming inputs, alternative extra income, cuts carbon footprints and generates farm grade water and high quality "free" fertiliser plus cuts the manure management cost, space to process it and this silage is both a health hazard and safety issue in working with it safely and avoiding fish kills in its runoff. The greater the volume collected, the more valuable outputs you make and the faster the capital cost of developing it.

[@tonymckeage1028]

Great Video, thanks for sharing

[@johndee3301]

"We approach the farmer... make them an offer they can't refuse."

[@paulkeddington3161]

How much are the farmers getting paid to sell their gas?

[@Jamal-Ahmed786]

Lucky bastard, no gas or electricity bill

[@kevinpoole4323]

Brilliant

[@kevinpoole4323]

I support this concept

[@eamonhannon1103]

This is one of the most heart warming videos I have seen on here on KZbin . Beautiful relationship between the man and his grandson . They walk around together , not a lot said but you can see the love and respect they have for each other . The young kid is so full of life , energy and enthusiasm . He is soaking up learning from his grandfather . It is beautiful , powerful and heart warming . It is shining out at us here . This is how families should work . Great people !

[@BilalAli-tm1jq]

Assalamu alaikum sir kya hal hai theek hun mein kam karna chahta hun ya Raat kheti badi kam karna chahta

[@Chris-lt2ov]

Co2 gives life and grows forage..

[@protasiocanalita6436]

Sir I was just wondering if it is possible to harness methane into gas and secure it into tanks for sale cheap to people who are hard up making ends meet by selling cheap cooking gas to them and make a small profit in the long run?

[@SilverGamingFI]

well, ove 95% of the gasses in natural gas is methane, which is the same gas that the digester produces, so using natural gas infrastructure would be easy. this coupled with the fact that there are plenty of nations that use Compressed natural gas (CNG) as a car fuel (usable in gasoline engines, although it is not well suited for it, use a CNG engine if you can) and is comparable to gasoline (weaker than modern diesel engines though) in other words, it would be easy due to it basically already having a counterpart in natural gas, but would be carbon negative

[@Niwaduwata]

❤

[@mohammadsuliman7729]

Good 👍 farming

[@candidegunn3624]

And yet it costs $15 dollars for a bag of manure

[@daveklein2826]

As it should

[@alishahatiq9407]

Very good farming

[@advith3087]

Good technology

[@frankycool1442]

Great

[@glengriffin9613]

I love Beef. I hate chicken and the disease they have been given us. Histoplasmosis meningitis/ spinal meningitis. It's not right permanent life time health conditions. So I say where's the Beef

[@jonathanbarton1724]

Fart sound identified at 0:05

[@jennhankle4521]

“Best way to drink milk.. [parp]”

[@user-oi9to7ux7k]

Idiot identified in comments section

[@ronishchand6011]

I am very proud of you guys

[@nelfredmagallon6659]

its funny how the guy said its like removing 3000 vehicles off the road, but still proudcuing gas for the cars on the road..😭😱

[@SilverGamingFI]

the comparison propably comes from the fact that burning methane turns it into co2, which is many times less potent than methane

[@thiennguyendo]

Note that the description incorrectly spelled the name of the farm. It is AirosA Dairy, not AirosO.

[@user-oi9to7ux7k]

Who cares

[@mybuckhead]

Move to Texas and make more profit.

[@Ifyouarehurtnointentwasapplied]

If you mixed the organic matter with wood chips and composted it would be great for the soil instead of burning it one day?

[@wildernessshouter]

I'm all for making bio gas as a alternative energy source. The whole argument around cows impacting the environment through releasing methane is absurd. I grew up on a farm; I worked with cows, I have also studied alternative energy extensively. This green movement is a huge con job. Every thing on the planet releases CO2 and methane during decomposition; and has been doing so since the beginning of life here. Some people just see the environmental bleeding hearts as a blank check to get what THEY want. They say follow the science, and I say follow the money that the so called "scientist" are putting in their pockets. Sucking from the government tit.

[@ceiii7190]

you working on afarm, yet you should know manure can ignite flame, the methane does really exist, if you believe all athing that decomposed release CO2 and methane yet , what the matter if you able to turn the manure into part of income aswell helping lowering the gas into the atmostfhere, its true all people need those money, but you get the gain aswell so arent that part of the deal?

[@wildernessshouter]

@@ceiii7190 I said I was all for making biogas as a energy source. So I'm not really understanding your point, it sounds like we are in agreement.

[@hichamkomha8359]

Hello sir. Do you sell cows to Morocco

[@estebancorral5151]

You should by your cows, sheeps, and goats from Mexico which are much cheaper. They use the same carriers that export to Morroco. You can make your deal in English, Spanish, French but not Arabic.

[@TakeTheRide]

This is sick. Something's wrong with people...

[@B-Th-Change]

I wish all the dairy gamers would put an end to dairy (cause it’s cruel) and keep their cows to replace natural gass with Methane. This would solve so many problems.

[@B-Th-Change]

FARMERS***

[@RadeLazarevic-w3n]

Zašto ne posetiš psihijatra

[@wilkersekupang2350]

they flush dairy poop with clean water, thousand gallon for clean it??? you get a Gas, you lose clean water. it's so ridicoulus.

[@SilverGamingFI]

Isn't that water treatable in a water treatment plant? like most of our sewage?