Don’t mind my cow’s farts. She might have solved our fuel crisis.

Published on May 26th, 2008

Bacteria Into Oil? How Farting Cows May Have Solved America’s Energy Woes

The folks at Bell Plantations in Tifton, Georgia are developing a way to convert bacteria into hydrocarbons. By genetically manipulating the bacteria, they believe they can produce different molecular chains to produce the basis for gasoline, diesel, propane and a variety of other hydrocarbon fuels.

In essence, they will be able to turn bacteria into oil – in a matter of months, rather than the millions of years it takes for fossils to degrade into usable fuels.

And proprietor J.C. Bell got the idea standing on a hill where cows were farting.

“I was standing downwind from one of our herds of cows,” Bell told me in a recent interview. “And it dawned on me that they can produce something quite well, and it all stinks. That stink is methane – natural gas. Methane is CH4. It’s a hydrocarbon. I started researching that and developing it in my little facility, and that led to the conclusion that we have the ability, if we can use bacterial action, to convert biomass into hydrocarbon.”

That’s what cows, termites and lots of other things do. They eat biomass and turn it into hydrocarbon.
[...]
Bell Plantations plans to clone the bacteria and genetically manipulate the biomass to produce hydrocarbon in the various forms needed to supply the market they anticipate. Present plans call for 500 nationwide production facilities within 18 months, which would give Bell Plantations the capacity to produce up to 500,000 barrels a day within two years.

29 users responded in " Don’t mind my cow’s farts. She might have solved our fuel crisis. "

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# 1 green said, on May 26th, 2008 at 6:37 am

All a prelude to Soylent Green.

# 2 body of knowledge said, on May 26th, 2008 at 6:45 am

This is another of many schemes by companies to patent and control through genetic engineering like they have done with corn to extract more corn syrup and fodder per acre through these methods, which in the case of this modified corn, leaves it tasting like cow dung. Hydrocarbon? Isn’t that suppose to cause global warming. Now we find out what’s causing it is farts coming from scientists.

# 3 jlm said, on May 26th, 2008 at 6:55 am

And here I was thinking nothing worth a shit would ever come out of Tifton.

# 4 floyd said, on May 26th, 2008 at 6:59 am

Not really a new idea, but still something to consider.

Think more about turning garbage, crop waste or sawdust into hydrocarbons. Not all corn stalks get turned into silage. Used wheat straw from barns could be reused the same way. So could cow flop.

The cow farts are a bit harder to “catch.”

# 5 Mister Ketchup said, on May 26th, 2008 at 7:06 am

[Comment deleted - Violation of Posting Guidelines. - ed.]

# 6 MikeN said, on May 26th, 2008 at 7:36 am

This would be a disaster for environmentalists who want to dictate people’s lifestyles.

# 7 zeph said, on May 26th, 2008 at 7:38 am

MikeN, not at all. In the future, we’ll all be required to eat lots of beans.

# 8 bobbo said, on May 26th, 2008 at 7:53 am

According to http://tinyurl.com/ptstx USA uses
20,730,000 bbl/day. So, if in 2 years we build 500 plants to produce 500,000 bbl/day==2%?

So–what we need is something that can be mass produced? Still nice to know we can get petroleum products as needed for critical plastic and other products?

# 9 bh28630 said, on May 26th, 2008 at 8:02 am

The point of the piece was not to capture anal wind but rather to devise a chemical mechanism to mimic micro organic activity on biomass. Let’s hope that this time someone does sufficient preliminary research to factor energy in vs. energy out. Scientists also need to determine whether the cost of converting a given source of biomass currently consumed as food is cost effective if the same material is instead used for fuel. Corn is an example very poor vision as all but the people profiting from the process will admit energy in > energy out and we have better uses for corn as food. Switchgrass has been mentioned as a better source of biomass.

# 10 James Hill said, on May 26th, 2008 at 8:11 am

Predicted in Knight Rider 2000, when Dan Quayle is President.

# 11 bobbo said, on May 26th, 2008 at 8:14 am

#9==Just a general hazy thought coming out of our experiment with corn====probably NO BIOMASS CONVERSION PROCESS IS ANY GOOD. Maybe its ok for something that is currently pure waste, but that is rare.

I’m thinking of wheat straw. Well–the machines are designed to pick mostly the grain. Now those machines need to be redesigned or added to to harvest the chaff? But the chaff gets plowed under to replenish the earth. Absent the replenishment, after a few harvests, the land losses productivity without fertilizers==which will be the case for all biomass processes==that carbon, nitrogen, potassium has to be replaced!!

Sure looks like solar in some manner (ie–including its derivatives like wind, wave, tide, ocean thermocline, etc) is the ony way to go.

# 12 gquaglia said, on May 26th, 2008 at 8:21 am

Watch for one of the big oil companies to buy it, then bury it, claiming its not economical.

# 13 HMeyers said, on May 26th, 2008 at 8:37 am

Not. Economically. Viable.

Bring back horses as the primary means of transportation!

They get better MPG.

# 14 moss said, on May 26th, 2008 at 8:44 am

You lot really don’t stay current with any of this, do you?

Google Craig Venter and survey his latest pilot plant operations. He should be up and producing sooner than 18 months from now – using only cellulosic ingredients.

Of course, he does offendeth G_d.

# 15 HMeyers said, on May 26th, 2008 at 8:45 am

Hey, I found the perfect algorithm:

1) Ride cow to work
2) Cow serves as “packed lunch”
3) Eat cow for lunch
4) Cow skin is tomorrow’s work clothes and boots
5) Jog home = get some exercise
6) Next cow eats grass, saves on lawn mower expense
7) Cow dung serves as furnace fuel; no home heating oil required.
Repeat!

Perfect cow-centric economy! Economic boon! And advantage over desert countries that just can’t compete with our superior cow-oriented infrastructure.

# 16 bh28630 said, on May 26th, 2008 at 9:25 am

moss said:

“Google Craig Ventner and…”

While the trigger topic was cows, stretch to horses and say don’t bet it all on one.

There are more than a few potential alternative energy sources as well as wealth of practical conservation methods. Combined with creativity and capitalism, America should be able to employ many diverse approaches to solve the ‘energy crisis’. The challenge is to get people to grasp the government can’t do it. Stop looking to the administration, the Senate and the House
for a popular political panacea.

# 17 QB said, on May 26th, 2008 at 9:41 am

OK, at least this is more intelligent than biofuels.

# 18 bobbo said, on May 26th, 2008 at 10:06 am

What does Ventner contribute?

He should work on getting chlorplasts into skin cells so we could all manufacture our own basic carbon chains? Might take some other minor biological modifications==shouldn’t be any big deal.

# 19 Mister Mustard said, on May 26th, 2008 at 11:42 am

#17 – Yes, this IS more intelligent than biofuels. Until the midwestern farmers get some kind of subsidy for cow flatus though, don’t look for it to attain any kind of mainstream popularity.

>>[Comment deleted - Violation of
>>Posting Guidelines. - ed.]

Ketchup, you really need to grow the fuck up. You’re giving a bad name to condiments. Can’t you post anything without it being so puerile that Ed. deletes it?

# 20 Mister Ketchup said, on May 26th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

[Ed. Personal attacks on other bloggers without topic contribution is a violation of posting guidelines.]

# 21 QB said, on May 26th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

Anyway, back to the topic….

I wonder if this technology will scale? Bobbo makes a good point about this but I suspect that those plants are prototypes.

I also wonder about the ecological impact. Would I want one of those plants in my neighborhood? What are the by-products? Would it smell like wrong end of a horse? I am not really qualified to judge that but someone around here may be.

# 22 Mister Ketchup said, on May 26th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

“[Ed. Personal attacks on other bloggers without topic contribution is a violation of posting guidelines.]”

So, personal attacks on other users are OK as long as there is topic contribution? Inquiring minds…

#13 – The problem with horses was what to do with the horse shit. I was thinking perhaps we could feed it to cigar smokers as breath freshener.

Also, where the fuck is the sense of humor around here? These aren’t personal attacks. We aren’t that thin skinned are we? This is the Internet FFS.

[There's a difference between making a clever retort and being an asshole. - ed.]

# 23 lou said, on May 26th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

I never saw a price on the barrel.
Sounds better than corn fuel.
Cheney will put an end to it though, when he goes back to work for big oil.

# 24 Mister Ketchup said, on May 26th, 2008 at 5:30 pm

#23 – He never stopped working for big oil.

# 25 deowll said, on May 27th, 2008 at 6:40 am

To the dude that didn’t know it this is biofuel.

The problem with biofuel is it reduces food production and it removes organic matter from fields which needs to be there for many reasons.

Even a thousand years back this kind of crap was known to encourage soil erosion, reduce water retention which made the land dry out worse, and reduce long range productivety of the land for several differnt reasons.

That so many modern people don’t know what was once common knowledge doesn’t say much for humans.

Of course many people did it anyway which is why many lands which were once bountiful and held powerful civilizations now don’t.

# 26 DrJay said, on May 27th, 2008 at 7:02 am

When the mastermind behind the plan says “That stink is methane” it should set off a few alarm bells. I thought the fact that methane was odorless was common knowledge. The smell commonly associated with methane is mercaptan which is a byproduct of animal digestion and also happens to be added to petrochemically derived methane so that end users can detect leaks. You can wikipedia it if you don’t believe me.

# 27 the answer said, on May 27th, 2008 at 9:05 am

Didn’t they do this in mad max? Yeah it was pigs, but I bet a cow’s fart could be just as potent

# 28 becagle said, on May 27th, 2008 at 10:27 am

I’ll tell you, with all the BBQ beans I had this weekend, I could give that cow a run for his money. Stand back and don’t pull my finger…

# 29 marvel goose said, on June 28th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

In other stories on this subject, JC Bell points specifically to waste product from lumber production.

A wood lot can generate mountains of sawdust. I can remember riding in the backseat at night passing the wood lots along US 84 in South Georgia and seeing the huge pyramid shaped incenerators burning the sawdust.

At some wood yards, they would use the heat to boil water to power turbines for electricity to power the saws. Other yards just burned it to get it out of the way.

As for the carbon footprinters out there, the system is closed cycle. Pulpwood pine tree absorbs light Co2 and water and creates biomass. We turn biomass into fuel. Burn fuel, release CO2 and repeat.

No cows were injured in the production of this post.

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