How many UK homes could be heated from cow manure?

Dave HarveyBusiness and surroundings correspondent, West of EnglandBBCDairy farmer Richard Clothier sees cow manure as “nature’s crude oil”What number of houses could possibly be heated by cow muck?It isn’t a query I’ve considered earlier than, however as Britain searches for sustainable sources of warmth, many farmers are trying, nicely, proper below their noses.Cow manure may be handled to launch biomethane, a renewable gasoline which is already used to energy central heating boilers in about one million houses.However there may be “large potential” to extend that to fifteen million houses, in accordance with the marketing campaign group Inexperienced Gasoline Taskforce.One dairy farmer who turns his cattle waste into biomethane, describes cow muck as “nature’s crude oil”.So how do you flip cow poo into gasoline? Might we actually make that a lot of it? And is it as inexperienced as they declare?Somerset dairy farmer Richard Clothier loves cow manure. In a cattle shed on the Somerset hills, close to Bruton, we’re scraping it off the flooring with quaint shovels. The job is normally performed by a robotic nowadays, however the farmer is completely happy to do what many would name a grimy job. “That is nature’s crude oil for us,” he says. “That is extremely calorific waste for producing gasoline.”Mr Clothier’s household have been farming cattle for 2 centuries, and have all the time realised the ability in manure. In 2013 they constructed a £4m plant to extract the methane from their cows’ waste.The £4m biogas plant extracts sufficient methane from farm waste to warmth 10,000 homesThe manure is collected in large tanks and pumped into an anaerobic digester (AD), the place micro organism break down the natural materials.Mr Clothier explains: “The methanogenic micro organism are gobbling up all of the solids and producing a great deal of beautiful methane, which we then catch within the hoods excessive.” The gasoline is then cleaned and thoroughly regulated earlier than being injected into the nationwide gasoline grid.Some is used on to run the cheesemaking dairy for Wyke Farms, Mr Clothier’s household enterprise. “We make 100% of our personal power”, he says. “Which is nice for the planet, and for our enterprise.”So what number of houses may be heated with the gasoline from Wyke’s cows? In whole, Mr Clothier calculates, 10,000 houses a yr.How a lot manure turns into gasoline?Hardly any. British cows produce about 90 million tonnes of slurry yearly, however solely 2.5% of it’s fed into AD crops. Regardless of the apparent advantages of free power and even promoting surplus energy to the grid, the set up prices are excessive.So now a marketing campaign is below method to get extra gasoline produced this fashion.Nether Stowey celebrated ten years of utilizing biomethane to warmth the Somerset villageIn the little village of Nether Stowey, nestled within the Quantock hills, a celebration was below means within the village corridor.It’s an uncommon cake, for a unusual celebration. The village’s gasoline plant has turned 10, so locals made a cake formed like the 2 domed gasoline tanks.The first college youngsters who got here to the get together have been raised virtually completely on gasoline from the close by plant. This one is just not fed with cattle manure, however human meals waste. That is collected by native councils and fed right into a digester, and as soon as once more the micro organism get to work.The cake is a part of a marketing campaign. Wales and West Utilities run the nationwide gasoline grid in Somerset, and the corporate is eager to get extra biomethane produced.Already the West Nation is a “hotbed for anaerobic digestion and biogas”, in accordance with Matt Hindle, head of Web Zero at Wales and West.There are 20 biomethane crops within the south-west of England, however the agency desires extra.”We predict biomethane could possibly be a extremely vital a part of our gasoline combine and will work with hydrogen, and electrification, as half of an entire system strategy to decarbonisation of the heating system,” mentioned Mr Hindle.How a lot biogas could possibly be made?Ten instances as a lot, or much more, in accordance with the marketing campaign. Clearly not all cow muck may be harvested. But when extra meals waste was collected, and extra biogas crops constructed close to dairy farms, “by 2050, we could possibly be 10-15 million households heated with biomethane”, mentioned Charles McAllister, director of the Inexperienced Gasoline Taskforce.Mr McAllister believes biomethane may warmth 10 million houses by 2050The taskforce argues constructing extra biogas crops close to farms will unfold the financial advantages of renewable power to rural areas. Mr McAllister mentioned: “It means funding in rural communities, jobs in rural communities, not within the huge cities, whereas decarbonising the power we use and bettering the native surroundings.”However even when the business grows tenfold, it would attain a pure restrict.There may be, in the end, solely a lot cow muck to feed the system.And that’s the place inexperienced campaigners fear that biogas won’t be as inexperienced because it claims.Inexperienced gasoline or ‘greenwash’?Making gasoline out of cow muck is extensively agreed to be a win for the planet. Capturing the methane in manure and placing it to managed use is healthier than permitting it to evaporate, worsening local weather change.However biogas can also be created from different sources already, like crops grown for gas not meals. And environmentalists fear the remainder of the gasoline within the pipelines will proceed to return from fossil fuels, as an alternative of being changed by renewable electrical energy.Power analysts at assume tank Regen estimate that at finest biomethane may exchange 18% of whole UK gasoline consumption.Tamsyn Lonsdale-Smith, the analyst who wrote the report, mentioned the potential of biomethane may be overstated.She mentioned: “Even 18% is an optimistic situation, so we do want to seek out different methods to decarbonise heating and transport.”Again in his cattle sheds, Mr Clothier is certain of 1 factor. For dairy farmers like him, harnessing the pure energy of his cow’s every day waste is a no brainer.He mentioned: “There’s a lot farm waste that would go into crops like this and generate a great deal of methane and save power that in any other case the UK has to purchase into the nation.”