34 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN April/May 2024 Methane Emission Management JESSICA WESSON | CONTRIBUTING WRITER Methane emissions have become a hot topic in the last two decades. According to NASA, 60 percent of the planet’s methane emissions are from human activities. The largest sources are fossil fuels, landfill waste and agriculture. One of the ways that the cattle industry decreases methane emissions is through anaerobic digestors, otherwise known as methane digesters. Rick Stowell, Ph.D., professor and Extension specialist in animal environment for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), says digesters have been around for a while. The first digester plant was built in India in 1859, and the popularity of methane digestion grew in 1895 when someManure management in feedlots and dairies has always been a top priority and challenge. CONTINUED ON PAGE 36 one discovered that biogas from a sewage treatment plant could be used to fuel streetlamps in England. “The idea behind digesters has been around a long time,” Stowell says. “What happens in a man-made digester is similar to what happens in the cow’s rumen.” The purpose of a methane digester is to promote the decomposition of manure into simple organics and biogas products. Xu Li, Ph.D., is a professor in UNL’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering who has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Animal Science. A pilot-scale manure spile stockpiled on a conductive concrete slab, which is set up at the Eastern Nebraska Research, Extension and Education Center in Mead. PRODUCTION
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