How stuff works: Episode 2 Turkeys!

The How stuff works series is great fun for anyone weird like me and interested in loads of stuff!


This episode focuses on the Turkey industry, it is a good watch! Please do! There are 3 parts... ENJOY :D!!!

POO POWER! Part 4: Pigs farting Power!

Even though assessment for this blog is over... I know I did this not for my environmental conscience, but because I was FORCED to... I feel the need to carry on posting because I love the many uses of poo...and here is another example of POO POWER!

So the video shows a great way to sustainably develop.... income from pig farming, waste management, and energy production on a decentralised scale... tick tick tick for the World Bank's Rural development initiatives!


This technology is being rolled out at a global level, it is happening in India and China where rural populations are increasing and require energy and income like anyone else.


More on this to come!! Hopefully! :D


Disclaimer.... I do not want any marks for these posts after the deadline of submission, I would just kind of like to carry on if possible??? Is that bad?

First an internet search engine... Now pig sh**?

Is there no end to the power that is google? Clearly there is and that is why they are investing in pig poo power (say that really fast 100 times without dying of lack of oxygen or boredom). As seen in this article.

The technology is simple, decompose the poo to produce methane (our favourite gas after oxygen and helium... *squeeeek!*) and then burn this highly potent GHG to produce heat to boil water to produce steam to turn a turbine to produce electricity! Loads of to-s!


Get this... it will produce enough to power an amazing 35 homes! That's right 3...5...! To be fair 1 american home is practically 20 European homes... WIN.


Highlighting the offsetting equivalent, the effect of 900 cars have been taken of the roads (and are now in China...lol!) no in all seriousness it shows the GHG producing potential of livestock.

Add a little P, get a load more Poo! Part 3: Video time...AGIAN!

This video is from an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) did a special on... you guessed it, peak P!


It is a really interesting video investigating the potential for utilising urine for nutrient extraction. I love the toilet! However, the man said that men will have to sit down... errr has anyone ever told him men can aim where they pee? This is very disturbing....


There is also a related article on the website. Please read!

Add a little P, get a load more Poo! Part 2: Video time!

This video summarises the main arguments around P, and it's in green (my favourite colour!). I particularly like the part about doing your part whilst sitting...just one letter away from what you're actually doing!

POO POWER! Part 3: Thames Water using our crap!

Thames Water are harnessing the power of sewage waste that comes from our toilets... that's right one man's waste is another companies fuel.

The article, from the guardian, explores the potential for energy production at the plant:

"The company estimates that 16% of its electricity needs will be covered in the current financial year by so-called poo power – enough to run about 40,000 average family homes – from a total energy requirement of 1,300 gigawatt hours."

Expanding this technology to all waste treatment works will save a lot of unnecessary carbon dioxide emissions from either producing energy from conventional combustion processes or letting the waste decompose anaerobically producing methane.

POO POWER! Part 2: Motorcycles, S**t whilst you ride?!?

Hold the toilet! What's this?!?


In an earlier post I said don't start peeing/crapping into your Mercedes... well now you can into your new toto motorcycle!


Ever had the urge to poo while riding down the motorway?


Do you get s**t scared when riding with your motorcycle buddies?


Well this is for you!

This new motorcycle, produced by toto operates using a "one in, one out" policy. You put food in one end (your mouth) and get fuel out the other (your... well if you don't know by now where it comes out SHAME ON YOU, I refuse to degrade this post to enlighten your curiosity about bowel movements).

The vehicle breaks down the poo into biogas (methane) and runs on the combustion of that fuel; reducing emissions from what would have otherwise been used, petrol/oil.

The only downside is privacy... and I really wouldn't want to be behind this driver in a traffic jam!

POO POWER! Part 1: Cars powered by poo!

For those of you who like to drive but are concerned about the rising costs of fuel and environmental issues around its production, this is for you!

This video and this news article in the Guardian explains all!

A water treatment plant in Bristol, part of the Wessex Water group of companies, is producing methane from human waste flushed down the loo! The biogas could resolve some sustainability issues around fuel for cars, as the man at the end of the video says:

 "As long as there are people, cows and chickens, they'll be methane."

I agree...

However! Even though biogas is sustainable and is beneficial in terms of dealing with increasing amounts of waste that we will produce, the fundamental problem is the fact that it is still a form of combustion; combustion = CO₂. 

So, on the one hand it's sustainable and uses the methane that would otherwise contribute a more to global warming in the short term. On the other, it doesn't address the underlying dependence on carbon dioxide producing processes which will inevitably exacerbate climate change. 

So what is the problem with excessive farting (also burping, urinating and excreting)?

Why is it even an issue worth discussing in a blog dedicated to the world of excrement? Well the fundamental problem we face, not just as a species, but as inhabitants of earth, is climate change. We humans use the planet as our only home, kitchen, garden and toilet. Like any other confined space, when you begin to change the chemical make-up of the gas enclosed in that volume, you begin to change the overall physical, chemical and thermal properties of that gas. In the case of excrement, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) is produced through a variety of processes (as is carbon dioxide, CO₂) which contribute to the greenhouse effect (Popp et al., 2010). Carbon dioxide is the most significant anthropogenic produced GHG due to the sheer quantity that is emitted into the atmosphere from human activities.  

However, as I touched upon in the previous post, over 100 years, the same amounts CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O have varying potencies due to their thermodynamic properties. This property is applied as a ration of heat trapped by one unit mass of the GHG compared to one unit mass of CO₂; this is called the Global Warming Potential (GWP) (Pitesky et al., 2009). As it a ratio, CO₂ has a GWP of 1; CH₄ has a GWP of 23 (in the previous post I wrote that the potency of methane was 20 times that of carbon, it was wrong sorry!); N₂O is 296 (FAO, 2006). From this data, it shows how important methane and nitrous oxide produced from livestock production, and in particular from poo, will be an increasing problem, not just as the total number of GHGs (CO₂ and non-CO₂) is set to increase from projected and modelled figures (Popp et al., 2010). In addition, with populations estimated to reach 9 billion by 2055 (World Bank, 2011) and increasing qualities of life reflecting greater demand for meat in the diet; livestock rearing is set to increase; that equates to a whole load of shhhhh… excrement.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) commissioned a report on the impact livestock production has on the planet,Livestock’s long shadow (FAO, 2006). As a whole, livestock (either directly or indirectly) is responsible for 18% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions (FAO, 2006); those figures broken down into individual GHG include:

·  Carbon dioxide (CO₂) 9% of global anthropogenic emissions.

·  Methane (CH₄₎ 35 – 40% of global anthropogenic emissions.

·  Nitrous oxide (N₂O) 65% of global anthropogenic emissions.

·  Ammonia (NH₃) 64% of global anthropogenic emissions.

However, as I will investigate later on in the blog (or further towards the top of the blog), Excretion and everything  does not just play an integral role to GHG emissions, it also plays a vital role in the nutrient cycle, particularly phosphorous and nitrogen. Phosphorous (P), as well as nitrogen (N) in the form of nitrates and other vital macronutrients like magnesium (Mg), potassium (K) and calcium (Ca) are required as well as a variety of other micro nutrients (Robinson, 2004). Phosphorous is often a limiting factor in plant production, due to its vital role as an ingredient in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), the building blocks of life; and in the Adenine triphosphate (ATP) which is the primary method of intracellular energy release and storage (Biology-Online, 2011), so we can all move, keep warm and most importantly… LIVE! Also, specifically to plants, P is necessary for healthy root growth, vital for the uptake of water and the other nutrients. The role fertiliser plays is significant, and indeed focusing on one of the nutrients, phosphorous, an increasingly important point has surfaced. Livestock (cows for example) need to eat; feed is created from plants; high amounts of land and biomass is required to produce vast amounts of feed; limited land resources dictates more intensive farming methods; greater dependence on higher yields; synthetic fertilisers created to provide the vital nutrients for plant growth; mining of phosphates from a finite source requires large amounts of energy whilst depleting the source.

As you can see, just from scratching the surface, cow (and other animals’) farts and poo pose a more serious problem than the humorous connotations applied to them suggest. Over the next few weeks and posts I hope to show you a greater insight in to the world of climate change, nutrients (re)cycling, pollution, eutrophication, renewable energy and many, many more uses, and subjects, which poo influences.

This blog may overlap with others, in fact it will. A post by fellow GEOG3057 blogger Emma (I hope she is Ok with me using her name), touches on the renewable potential of methane gas from… well cow farts. Another blog dedicated to the debate around biofuels can also shed light on the increasing diversification of energy sources, by another fellow GEOG3057 blogger Yulia. But those topics are for another time!

Next I hope to give you an insight into past methane releases and the relationships between the potent GHG and the atmosphere, looking at palaeo records of methane…essentially fossilised cow farts… Ok well some of the methane was produced by pre-modern time cows farting. Until then… watch those deadly emissions!

References:

Biology Online, 2011, ATP Definition. Available from: http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Atp. [Online] accessed 24/10/2011.

FAO, UnitedNations, Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2006, Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental issues and options, FAO-UN:Rome.

Pitesky, M. E., Stackhouse, K. R. and Mitloehner, F. M. 2009, Clearing the Air: Livestock’s contribution to climate change, Advances in Agronomy, 103, 1-40 pp.

Popp, A., Lotze-Campen, H., Bodirsky, B., 2010, Food consumption, diet shifts and associated non-CO₂ greenhouse gases from agricultural production. Global Environmental Change, 20, 451-462 pp.

Robinson, G. 2004, Geographies of Agriculture: Globalisation, restructuring and sustainability. Harlow: Pearson Publications Limited.

World Bank, Development Research Group, Human Developmentand Public Services Team, (Das Gupta, M., Bongaarts, J. and Cleland, J.) 2011, Population, Poverty and SustainableDevelopment: A Review of the Evidence, World Bank: Washington D.C., WPS5719.

If you find this sh.... stuff interesting then you might find these blogs interesting to! 

Please check them out, as I try to myself!

Agriculture: Human Health and Earth Health: http://robs-agriculture.blogspot.com/ 

Biofuels: Way Ahead or Blind Alley: http://biofuels-wayaheadorblindalley.blogspot.com/

Fixing Climate Change: http://fixingclimatechange.blogspot.com/