Imagine this: instead of having to deal with gasoline and all of the associated geopolitical machinations that complicate its supply, or having to deal with the expense and infrastructural issues of electric batteries, you could simply take the plentiful bounty of energy that is gifted to humanity via the anus of a cow and use that to power your car. That’s the dream, isn’t it? Instead of filling your tank with expensive, toxic gasoline, you could be running a hose from vast tanks brimming with a rich, redolent slurry made from the leavings of bovine bowels. What a world that would be!
Well, it seems that this dream is shared by at least a few major companies, like Suzuki, who in partnership with Banas Dairy and the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) of India. You probably generally don’t think about dairy companies as major players in the global energy market, an omission, which, if you’ll forgive me, disgusts me. However, I promised my clergyperson I would keep my anger in check and instead will inform you about this project, and keep my own judgements in check.
This arrangement started back in 2023 with the goal of setting up four cow dung-based biogas plants designed to produce Compressed Biomethane Gas (CBG) in Banaskantha district of Gujarat. There is at least one operational plant today, and it’s producing cow crap-based fuel for 600 to 700 vehicles every day. These vehicles are ones that are already designed to run on Compressed Natural Gas (GNG) of which India already has many, including many of India’s iconic autorickshaws.
The fuel sold from the biogas station costs the equivalent of 85 cents per kilogram, which is about 21 cents less than what gasoline costs in the same area. Not only is the cow dung-based fuel cheaper, but local farmers in the area can sell the cow manure they produce for about 1 rupee per kilogram; the plant buys 88 tons of cow pies from farmers all over the area, making this an extremely locally-sourced fuel that puts money directly back into the economy.
It’s really hard to find a downside to this; it’s environmentally sound, as capturing the methane in cow shit and turning it into fuel before it ends up in the atmosphere helps to mitigate methane’s damage as a greenhouse gas, and the use of the waste to make fuel simply piggybacks on the existing dairy industry, adding a new source of income and a valuable new product. Oh, and the residue from the process that turns cow shit into fuel? That can be re-used as fertilizer.
Perhaps more unique to India is the cow’s status as a sacred animal, which maybe lends a certain cachet to running your car off the leavings of something revered. I don’t know for certain that people think that way, but I can imagine it. Vividly.
Now, since cow crap is, you know, crap, it’s not exactly an energy-dense source of fuel. After all, it’s what’s left over from plants after energy has been extracted from it to, you know, run a whole cow. As a result, it takes the poop from 10 cows over the course of one day to power a car for a day.
So, sure, it takes a lot of cow crap to make viable vehicle fuel, but it’s not like anyone had anything better to do with all that bullshit, right? Why not turn it into fuel?
Of course, it’s hard not to forget that we’ve heard of grandiose plans like these before. There have been plans to turn panda crap, alligator guts, seaweed, turkey offal, and just whatever garbage into fuel going back decades, and while some of these plans have seen some success and use, so far they haven’t transformed the global energy landscape into one that runs on otherwise unwanted waste.
The process for turning the dung into fuel isn’t quick; the plant has to mix the dung with water and then let it ferment for 35 days to produce the biogas, but now that the plant is up and running, a steady supply of the biogas is available. You can actually sort of see it in this photo of the plant, filling those balloon-like tops of what I believe are storage tanks.
But I’m very happy to see that people aren’t giving up; the idea of making fuel from literal shit is just too compelling a concept to let go. There’s still a lot of work to do, mostly in the logistics and distribution departments, but India seems serious about making this work. The government recently announced a scheme called Sampoorn Gobardhan, which is Hindi for “cattle waste wealth” that is designed to promote growth in the biogas sector. The potential is there; experts with the Global Biofuels Alliance believe that if India can can utilize even one-third of its cattle waste, they could replace their natural gas import demand completely.
Energy independence, from cow shit!
Is that 88 tons daily or per
anusannum?They stole Richard Hammond’s idea!
“people aren’t giving up; the idea of making fuel from literal shit”
CircularityFuels has a process to take biogas and upgrade it to a synthetic liquid fuel that you can run in your current car. Cleaned biogas goes through a reformer and then a Fischer-tropsch reactor to make synthetic oil.
This has been tried before and the economics don’t support it compared to taking that methane and using it to generate electricity and then putting the electricity into the grid where it can be used for anything than needs electricity.
The economics of selling electricity from biogas production are bad because they cannot follow demand. They have to run 24/7 even when the price of electricity is negative, with smaller generation units that have higher maintenance costs per unit of electricity sold. This is why on site electrify generation is being replaced by machines that purify the methane to pipeline quality (renewable natural gas). Then it can be stored in the pipeline before it is bought by a much larger, efficient, and cheaper to operate combined cycle plant that burns more methane then an individual biogas plant could produce.
I wonder if the increase in grid battery storage might help with that. It’s a growing sector to help offset the inconsistencies of wind and solar.
You could also go with 10 days of gas storage and a bigger genset, but those additional costs are now going to be similar to the cost of the equipment to inject the gas into the pipeline. The path to profitability is also much more uncertain because you are not using the larger grid connection required at 100% capacity. The larger wires still have to be paid for on the monthly bill, and running 24/7 at maximum output minimizes this monthly expense. I think the solution is a reversible solid oxide fuel cell that can generate electricity from biogas at the highest efficiency and also produce hydrogen from cheap grid power, but these are probably 10 years away from commercialization.
As they say in India: “Porque no los dos?” Have the plant choose whether to sell methane or electricity based on demand. Both are loaded with delicious kilowatts that can be used to meet customer needs!
Now when I say I drive a shitbox, I can mean it literally…
*Fender bender*
Driver: “What the hell? You shithead…your shitbox scraped my bumper!”
Me: “Bullshit, you were texting”
Driver: “You’re full of shit”
Me: “No, my shitbox is full of bullshit”
Driver: “What?! Yeah, it’s a piece of crap”
Me: “Runs like it too! Since it runs on bullshit, literally”
Driver: “Wait, what? You’re full of shit…ok, actually instead of telling insurance I was texting and scraped your bumper, can I fix that and pay you to turn my car into a bullshitbox?”
Me: “Sure! It will also run like crap AND run on crap, while being driven by a shithead full of bullshit!”
Driver: “Sounds great! Have a wonderful day”
This piece belongs in TMD!
Sure, why not?
Yawn…
Sometimes these stories are presented as if they’re brand-new ideas, when they’re really established technologies being applied in a new context. Methane-powered cars and refueling infrastructure have been around for decades in countries like Italy.
It’s worth noting that the real innovation here isn’t the engine—it’s the fuel source. Countries like Italy have CNG (“Metano”) infrastructure for decades. A CNG vehicle can run on fossil natural gas or purified biomethane because, chemically, they’re the same methane (CH₄). The existing infrastructure makes it possible to transition toward renewable methane without replacing vehicles or fuel stations.
This is something I can stand behind as a technology that is useful and solves problems. But I probably shouldn’t stand directly behind it. If only we could keep big oil and their political pressure out of it then we could have some sweet, shitty fuel here too. I would convert or buy a vehicle just to support cows and their farming families.
Holy Shit! It’s literally what it is, if you think about it.
I see what You did there
Great. I hope this doesn’t reignite the Crapburetion vs. Stool Injection debate.
10 cowpower –> 100 horsepower
So if 10 cows provide a full days worth of fuel (whatever that means in India), couldn’t I build a truck that holds 10 cows that can also be harnessed to tow it once I run out of fuel and in effect end up with an infinite range “Extended Range Excrement Vehicle”?
Could John Deere revolutionize farming by diverting a tiny amount of grain farmed into infinite range machinery that also fertilizes your farm? What hoops will they go through to make sure only their technicians are able to access and service your cows?
So, there is a documentary series from the UK where three people live on a historic farm and try to live as if it is so many years ago. They’ve done Tudor (late Middle Ages), Victorian (1860s), Edwardian (1910s) and War Time (1940s) for eras.
What you realize is that the way farms worked back then, especially before the industrial revolution was 100% what you are talking about.
All the manure was used as fertilizer, which produced a bigger harvest, which gave more fodder for the animals. So, the horse or cow working to plow the field, also fertilized the field and the grains in the field became their food. There was a remarkable amount of efficiency in these farms, even without machines.
One of the things I learned about this was that we are mistaken to assume that our forebearers didn’t have high tech stuff. The absolutely did, it’s just that the technology they had had developed down a different path.
Are you thinking of “The Supersizers Go…”? If so, that’s an underappreciated gem.
Haven’t seen it.
I was thinking “Victorian Farm”, Edwardian Farm”, “Wartime Farm”, Tudor Monastery Farm” in the 2010s. There’s one called “Tales from the Green Value that I haven’t seen and the same thing was in “secrets of the Castle” although the format has changed a bit.
Oh gotcha. Sounds similar, but more documentary than the slight comedic aspect “Supersizers” had.
Yeah, these were pretty straight documentaries. Most of them are 12 episodes, where they show what has to happen for each month of a year on the farm.
Like “this is August, the hay needs harvested and stored for winter.”
A cool one was where they needed a new pony. They bought a wild pony that had been captured from the moors, which is the historic. They brought in a trainer from Tennessee that trained this wild pony with horse whispering. Dude never raised his voice, never got upset, never moved fast and in a couple days, the pony was pulling wagons like he had been tame his entire life. What was especially amazing is that I had bumped into that guy from Tennessee years before and he was jus really cool, but I doubted his stories a bit. Then I find that he’s not only real, but world renown and was in the UK teaching horse whispering when the show asked him to help with their pony. It was like watching a magician work.
Also coulda gone with Holy Shit given the sacred status of cows in India.
Is Hark Motors involved in this?!
Doesn’t methanol already exist? Cows already fart methane LOL
Methanol and methane are different, although I suppose you could run vehicles off both.
Yes, but can probably get one out of the other
Ahhh – that’s part of the plot of Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome,
… well with pig shyte, not bull/cow shyte.. but methane cometh from shyte.
You can shovel shit, can’t you?
https://youtu.be/6xb3KHbpFXs?si=3YjsZJ4uoXGPLCKu
Barter town ran on pig shit not bullshit.
Slightly disappointed. An article about shit, by Torch no less, and not one instance of the word “loamy”.
Excellent article!
But that topshot is udderly ridiculous 🙂
That’s gonna start a movement!
A moo-vement.
Sorry. I’m so sorry.
Don’t be… I realized this too late to edit my comment. Glad to heifer seen someone else do it.
Lots of big dairy have bio gas reactors or digestor. Alot run a generator sometimes compressors from it to power the facility and sometimes equipment. I’ve always been told bio gas is hard on seals even more so then cng. Still for Suzuki could be the marketing they need in India. They can probably figure out the seal issues too. Plus so many things are already running off cng or lpg in India.
Thanks for inserting the space. My brain had a tough time with this article: I’ve never seen a single bioga, much less a steady supply!
Most of the sites have something that looks like a big sphere or a boob. Normally the reservoir or reactor. It’s possible you saw one and just thought what a funny looking thing. The rest of the stuff sort of blends into normal dairy farming.
I think the dutch use them more then anyone. Allegedly they are the profitable in farming. Probably a big part of the reason some of the big us dairy’s have invested in bio gas. Supposed to be a thing across Europe but I think most will be operated off site by a third party and waste will get piped or trucker in from multiple farms.
This seems pretty cool. I wonder if it can be expanded to other animal dung. I’ve been told numerous times that I’m full of crap
Sounds like you’re sitting on a gold mine! Similar to the majority of commenters here…
Burning cow farts, sky high debts, rising oil prices, unnecessary wars in the middle east, AND music is getting good again?
We are officially back in the 2009 timeline, except now it’s massively harder to be poor.
But I digest…burning excess methane is a good idea. But from a GREET/well-to-wheel perspective it’s probably better to convert it to energy at the source instead of introducing leakage points along the way (pun intended) to put it in a vehicle.
I was just thinking the other day. These gen z hipsters aren’t cutting it. I guess what can we expect from the “iPad kids”. The previous generation of hipsters running around in the great recession really owned it and made the best out of it. Made it look fun even. Brought back decent music. Return to roots as much as they could. Brought back dying professions. Embraced cheap old things. So many cheap beer brands would be dead if it wasn’t for them.
But they were fighting wall street and banks I guess “the man”. These kids seem to hate AI and a lessor extent PE blame it for everything but still use it and buy from it. No conviction. Plus they are too obsessed with consumer goods and drive though coffee / drinks. And the most basic food known to man.
And the most basic food known to man.
Wouldn’t the most basic food known to man be actual fruit, actual vegetables as well as dairy and meat straight from the animal?
That’s pretty much what they were eating. No seasoning no sauce. Just fried chicken strips and fries.
I suppose those ARE the most basic foods they know of.
My youngest sister went to a school for post grad that was designed to pump out pe teachers? I visited her a few times always broken bones everywhere.
But also she said in the dining hall most of the people ate chicken nuggets or strips depending on what they had Mac and cheese and chocolate milk every night. I think at that time period then would have been early gen z. I don’t think they would be considered iPad kids though. Very fascinating.
Post grad school for PE teachers?
FFS WHY?!
Almost all teachers get masters now. Then many end up getting a PhD in education paid for. So they can go into admin or get better pay. For alot of the big districts that pay a somewhat living wage they basically require a masters in education. There are 5 year programs at many universities. Kids going though are no better for it but get an extra year or two of debt.
I think most of them were in those 5 or 6 year programs but some were definitely there for post grad. She was in a different post grad program getting a Psy.D. Academia has become a pyramid scheme of nonsense that gets worse every year.
I can see that for a physics teacher but P.E.? Does one need that much schooling to teach kids the rules of sportsball?
‘For alot of the big districts that pay a somewhat living wage they basically require a masters in education.”
Funny, I kept hearing how teachers are underpaid here too. Then I looked up some of my local teachers salaries on TransparentCalifornia. They were making with a bachelors or masters as much as I was as an early/mid career PhD scientist.
My BIL used to work payroll for the city of SF. From what he saw union jobs, including teaching, pay very, very well but the unions perpetuate the myth because it keeps the public support going.
Academia has become a pyramid scheme of nonsense that gets worse every year.
Word! I was dismayed how bad it was 30 years ago.
All true. Academia pervert the sports ball in to “sports medicine” and other such grandiose titles. So they will have maybe a masters in one of those then a PhD in education. I was told at one point there was a DOE metric for how many PhDs are system had it helped in some way for funding or acceptance rates for the pyramid scheme.
We used to joke about masters syndrome and how you have to get a PhD to have a chance to earn back your common sense. I’m not sure it works for those programs. But most people I’ve known her have been working while in a PhD program see academia for what it is after. Sort of ironic.
I’ve seen some districts in some states really not get paid much. But the big districts in big states. They get paid well and get a raise every year. I knew some teachers in the dc area that after maybe 8 to 10 years in the system were pulling down about gs14 pushing gs15 wages.
The south and mid west and mountain west. Not always the case.
You can get into the whole party girl doesn’t know what to do with life thing with teachers. That I’ve found to be more true then not. I’ve seen generations of it. Now my daughter has friends in MAT programs that are very much party girls that don’t know what to do so they become a teacher.
Oh Jason I hate to burst your fart bubble but in the US and most of the developed world cow farms are already capturing the cow farts and using them to power their massive operations. In fact the possibility was mentioned in TBBT a decade ago.
You guys need to watch more television
Wait, is this poop story #2?
*Poop story hashtag 2
A large fraction of the ‘renewable natural gas’ (a.k.a. RNG) that is sold in California and elsewhere in the united states is already sourced from ‘dairy digesters’, which is basically this. A bunch of the rest is from landfill gas. This is all a Good Thing because burning natural gas (~methane) into CO2 rather than letting it escape into the atmosphere as methane (CH3) has a very significantly lower global warming potential. Capturing and burning what would otherwise be ‘fugitive’ methane is one of the very few legitimately net-negative global warming potential fuel options. Plus, as you mention, it is locally sourced, locally used, which avoids geopolitical disruptions to fuel supply and pricing, at least to a certain extent. More stuff like this!
The only problem is once we rely on cow farts for energy the friggin animal rights people will protest we are using them, not sure why animal rights activists want us to kill all the farm animals, but then no cows no cow farts it will truly be a shit storm
I was wondering if there really was a net benefit from this. Thanks for answering my question before I asked. It’s awesome being part of a community that really knows their shit!
Very interesting and agreed, Thank you!
Also: (never thought I’d read about fugitive methane, but here we are…)
Inmate: “So what are you in for?”
Me: “I’m a methane fugitive”
Inmate: “Yeah, a pretty shitty one, at that, since you got caught!”