COW Manure FRIEND or FOE ????

Or is it the front end of the cow that is killing us ......

While manure-derived methane is proving very useful, the methane cows burp is causing problems. Methane is a greenhouse gas and, in the atmosphere, contributes to global warming. Cows burp an abundant supply of it every day — about 280 liters per animal (in other words, the average cow could fill 140 two-liter soda bottles with gas daily). Unfortunately, burped methane is more difficult to collect, with the result that about six million metric tons of it float blissfully up into the atmosphere every year. And that's just from herds in the United States. (Worldwide, ruminant livestock — including cattle, sheep, goats, and buffalo — produces about 80 million metric tons of methane per year, accounting for 22% of anthropogenic methane emissions.) REF: http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/03/032502t_cowpower.jhtml