Methane heats the planet 20 times more than carbon dioxide. A ruminant animal, an animal that digests it’s food many times, creates methane when it digests food in its rumen, the first stomach in a ruminant animal that acts as a holding chamber for food.

The rumen contains over 400 microbes that break down the food as it enters and some of the microbes specialize in producing methane. The key may be to just get rid of these particular microbes and replace them with ones that won’t produce methane.

Scientists at AgResearch in New Zealand are working on a solution. New Zealand is expecting a surge in it’s livestock demand in the coming years due to the increased need for meat and dairy products in China and the replacement of grazing land for ruminants in the US by bio-fuel crops.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Global Warming, Renewable Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.