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I was very excited to receive information via email on 'Alexander's Cattle Methane Capture Device,' a new patent application for a device that you might be already guessing attempts to achieve. The original message, passed on to me, reads as follows: "I have invented a device to capture methane directly from a cow's third stomach to be used for energy production.
And it will not harm the cow. I am looking for a company or organization to help me bring this device into production, Lamarr Alexander."
But the drawing has disappeared from Mr Alexander's website and it befell me to cobble together details from other list comments, several of which referred to a mask worn on the cow's face. So either the cows are plugged in to a central capture device or they are each intended to wear individual tanks, perhaps like a back pack to capture the methane (a potent greenhouse gas.)
Some users thought that fitting cows with masks was inhumane, others posited that the tube was plugged in to the wrong end. But cow burping is apparently a significant factor on global warming. Six million metric tonnes of it float into the air each year. The inventor has not got back to me, unfortunately, and I can neither put these concerns to him nor view his design.
A Google of the topic revealed that the process of collecting the methane from the fermenting lakes of cow manure (nice image) was gaining a lot of ground in the USA. The Haubenschild Dairy Farm in PA produces 20,000kW of power a week.
Would that Mr Alexander would get back to us so we can help him find a funder to solve the otherwise intractable problem of cow belching.
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