The power of cowpats!

Last week, I was kindly invited to speak at the Net Zero Methane Hub Showcase from the wonderful IFEAA about the potential role of carbon finance in developing infrastructure for harnessing biomethane from slurry pits.

What blew me away was the untapped potential. Open slurry pits emit significant amounts of methane (which is between 28 and 90 times more potent than CO2 in terms of warming effect) and yet if captured and refined, it has the potential to power entire farming systems and more.

In fact they highlighted that if all the biomethane was collected (utilising anaerobic digestion plants) from slurry pits in Cornwall, this could equate to providing 1/3rd of the natural gas requirement of the county.

There were some really interesting innovations showcased including:

🔥 Anaerobic Digestion Plants which could power SOO much not just tractors but electricity too
🚜 Biomethane powered tractors and generators
🌏 Cornwall's council commitment to helping unlock this untapped resource
🐄 Meeting a farmer who has all of this technology implemented on their farm and HOW powerful it has been for them. Reducing emissions and providing cost effective power.

But the event highlighted some key issues:
1. Whilst the infrastructure can pay for itself in 4 - 8 years, high upfront costs are affecting adoption ---> can carbon finance unlock this?
2. Planning requirements are significantly slowing down the adoption of this technology ---> government has to allow this critical infrastructure to be built

I came away from the event with a familiar feeling, this seems like a TOTAL no-brainer, prevent emissions from reaching the atmosphere AND create energy renewable energy from waste and yet, this isn't being rolled out extensively due to the usual issues of financing and regulation roadblocks.

Surely, these sort of amazing initiatives should be utilised everywhere in our fight for Net Zero?