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Jeff Kocsis of Littleton writes:

Now we know that cattle are largely responsible for global warming because of all that methane being emitted by their flatulence (“Don’t have a cow, man,” On Point, Oct. 17). This brings up several interesting questions: I once read that there were an estimated 60 million bison roaming around North America before the arrival of the Europeans. This doesn’t include all the Asian and African buffaloes, wildebeests, etc., who were doubtless flatulating up a storm for millions of years. Does this mean, perhaps, that the global warming that has been ongoing since the end of the last Ice Age may, in fact, have been primarily caused by these large animals?
How could nature, in its mindless but infinite wisdom, have allowed such a creature to evolve and so upset the ecological balance? Might the dinosaurs have similarly gassed themselves into extinction? Did the global cooling that occurred during the 19th century occur because we killed off so many American bison? Should we begin exterminating these un-green creatures (cattle, bison, buffalo, wildebeest, etc.) before they once again gas themselves and all humanity into ex-stink-tion?

This letter has not been edited.

READER COMMENTS

It's only kooks who believe that about cows. Kooks such as Peter Darbee, head of PG&E in California.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/18/BU80TD6ER.DTL

As head of PG&E Corp. in San Francisco, Darbee has spent much of his tenure trying to convince fellow business executives that global warming is a threat. He has thrown the company's weight behind state laws designed to fight climate change. He has become a frequent visitor to Capitol Hill, where he pushes for a nationwide system to limit the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for heating the planet.

A: Well, we are working on it right now, and we have a contract for 530 megawatts, which will be the largest solar project I think in the world. (Editor's note: 1 megawatt can power 750 homes.)

But I want to emphasize we've been really working on all fronts. So if you look at the mix of what we have, we use the geysers (geothermal field), traditional wind, photovoltaic, solar thermal. We're doing a fair amount of work with biogas. We have a lot of cattle in California, and we're working with developers who are capturing that methane and putting it back into the pipeline.

And then we're looking right now at wave technology off of Mendocino. So we're really looking at all these technologies and trying to be as creative and innovative and practical as possible.

Another kook? Cargill, the second largest private corporation?

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSN2330579720071023

"Cargill to turn Indonesian feedlot waste to energy
Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:25pm EDT

CHICAGO, Oct 23 (Reuters) - U.S. agribusiness company Cargill Inc [CARG.UL] said on Tuesday it began constructing a facility on an Indonesian cattle feedlot to convert animal waste into energy.

The anaerobic digester, scheduled to begin operating by February 2008, on PT Santosa Agrido's Lampung Bekri 23,000-cattle feedlot operation in Lampung/Sumatera, Indonesia, will convert cattle manure into 900 tonnes of methane gas per year that will be used to generate energy for the feedlot.

"Cargill has taken the responsibility to develop, fund and implement the project, including managing of all permitting and registration issues. That allows us to concentrate on what we're here for, which is to reinforce our position as the largest cattle feed lot business in the region," Samuel Wibisono, PT Santosa Agrindo's president director of its beef division, said in a statement.

The project is designed to reduce the greenhouse gas equivalent of 188,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere over 10 years. A byproduct of the process will be an organic corn fertilizer.

The technology, managed and funded by Cargill's Environmental Finance group, will generate carbon credits that can be traded on global climate exchanges.

Minneapolis-based Cargill, the second-largest privately held U.S. company, is a global provider of food, agricultural and trading services.

Another kook? Richard Darby, head of PG&E in California.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/18/BU80TD6ER.DTL

Peter Darbee is trying to build the country's greenest utility.
As head of PG&E Corp. in San Francisco, Darbee has spent much of his tenure trying to convince fellow business executives that global warming is a threat. He has thrown the company's weight behind state laws designed to fight climate change. He has become a frequent visitor to Capitol Hill, where he pushes for a nationwide system to limit the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for heating the planet.
A: Well, we are working on it right now, and we have a contract for 530 megawatts, which will be the largest solar project I think in the world. (Editor's note: 1 megawatt can power 750 homes.)

But I want to emphasize we've been really working on all fronts. So if you look at the mix of what we have, we use the geysers (geothermal field), traditional wind, photovoltaic, solar thermal. We're doing a fair amount of work with biogas. We have a lot of cattle in California, and we're working with developers who are capturing that methane and putting it back into the pipeline.
And then we're looking right now at wave technology off of Mendocino. So we're really looking at all these technologies and trying to be as creative and innovative and practical as possible.

Ha, ha, fooled you. There's just one Richard Darby.

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