Tractors may be fuelled by cow dung in next 10 years
COWS produce milk, beef and leather, but very soon they might power tractors.
A scheme is under way to fuel the vehicles with methane within the next 10 years in a bid to cut global greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s reckoned it would take 700 cattle to produce enough slurry to harvest methane to run a tractor for 10 hours a day on large farms, and up to 200 cattle would be needed for smaller operations.
Globally, fossil fuels receive €6.4trillion in subsidies annually. The Irish Government and others are now committed to ending this, which will see an end to green diesel and will mean farmers will have to pay the same for fuel as motorists.
Paul Smyth of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) said: ‘We are not in the immediate future anticipating a world without green diesel. Green diesel is the only alternative.
‘I know there are electrical tractors in the pipeline in terms of being developed but that’s 10 or 15 years away so green diesel is the only choice for farmers.
‘It’s very much a tax that would fall directly onto the farmer. If that were to happen it would have significant implications on the profits of farmers,’ he said. Mr Smyth told RTÉ’s Countrywide that for tillage farmers it could be ruinous.
He added: ‘They have a higher usage rate of green diesel so they would obviously be affect the most, dairy farmers next and then livestock farmers. It’s not a perfect market as alternatives are not available.
‘Food prices won’t be directly affected if it is only a taxation in Ireland, but internationally, if the taxation is levied, then prices here will be affected. Any new system needs to be incentivised.’
Liam Hayde of New Holland tractors said the company was in the ‘very late development stages of a 75-horsepower tractor’.
He explained: ‘We’ll have a commercially available unit in the UK working next year and that will be up to five in the following year. So it’s really two years before they are available and there’ll be a very small volume.
‘There are some other manufacturers currently offering a very small compact or garden-size tractor. Regarding large tractors, the issue at the moment is range and packaging, batteries and charging networks obviously.
‘The methane alternatives do go to the full size. At the moment we have delivered, commercially and working, two T60180 methanepowered tractors.
‘They are essentially standardised tractors that have been modified to run on a CNG biomethane and can run and operate as a normal tractor in a normal fleet.
‘We also now offer a larger horsepower machine as well to satisfy some of the bigger users of 270 horsepower, but first deliveries are not for six to eight months.’
Mr Hayde pointed out the problem in the short term is how to source the supply of methane.
He added: ‘Those who can generate their own bio-methane are benefiting but it’s not every farm at the moment. Anaerobic digestion is in its infancy in Ireland at the moment.’
He said that there are projects in England where remote farmers are harvesting methane directly from slurry, compressing the gas, cleaning it and using it to fill vehicles and off-grid engines.
Mr Hayde added: ‘Data from tractor manufacturers shows it will take 700 cattle to produce enough slurry to harvest methane to run a tractor for 10 hours a day every day in big operations. Up to 200 cattle would be needed for smaller farming operations.’
He said he would like to see ‘much of the tractor fleet running on this type of fuel within the next 10 years’.
‘Green diesel is the only alternative’