Cuddling cows
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its cows and instead charge visitors to cuddle them.
While some start-ups try to tackle the problem with plant-based burgers designed to convert carnivores, or seaweed supplements that make cows less gassy, one company is trying to capture emissions directly with a mask-like device that sits above a cow’s nose.
“Because of our background in livestock farming, we knew that cattle exhale most of the methane through their mouth and nostrils, so the obvious approach was to work on a device that would capture these emissions at the source,” says Francisco Norris, CEO of Zelp, the UK-based start-up.
A sensor on the device detects methane as the cow or bull breathes, and when levels of the gas pass a certain threshold, the technology draws the methane into the mask to a mechanism that oxidizes the gas, turning it into lesspotent CO2 and water vapor.
