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JAPAN’S SPACE INDUSTRY opened a potential new chapter today with a start-up testing a prototype rocket engine that runs on fuel derived purely from a plentiful local source: cow dung.
The experiment saw the engine blast out a blue-and-orange flame 10-15 metres horizontally out of an open hangar door for around 10 seconds in the rural northern town of Taiki.
The liquid “biomethane” required was made entirely from gas derived from cow manure from two local dairy farms, according to Interstellar Technologies chief executive Takahiro Inagawa.
“We are doing this not just because it is good for the environment but because it can be produced locally, it is very cost effective, and it is a fuel with high performance and high purity,” Inagawa told AFP.
“I do not think it is an exaggeration to assume this will be replicated …all over the world,” he said. “We are the first private business to do this.”
Interstellar, which hopes to be able to put satellites in space using the fuel, teamed up with industrial gas producer firm Air Water.
It works with local farmers who have equipment on their farms to process their cow dung into biogas which Air Water collects and turns into the rocket fuel.
Resource-poor Japan “must secure domestically produced, carbon-neutral energy now”, said Tomohiro Nishikawa, an engineer at Air Water.
“The raw material from this region’s cows has so much potential. Should something change in international affairs, it’s important that Japan has an energy source that it has already in hand,” he added.
Japan’s space agency JAXA launched its “Moon Sniper” mission in September but the sector has been plagued by problems in recent years with two failed missions – one public and one private.
Japan has also had setbacks with its launch rockets, with mishaps after liftoff of the next-generation H3 in March and the normally reliable solid-fuel Epsilon last October.
In July, the test of an Epsilon S rocket, an improved version of the Epsilon, ended in an explosion 50 seconds after ignition.
Biogas derived from cow manure is already being used for fuel around the world, including to run buses in the Indian city of Indore, instead of more polluting conventional sources.
It helps mitigate the enormous environmental footprint of agriculture, which Greenpeace says is responsible for 14% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
Burning biogas also releases greenhouse gases, but so does leaving it to degrade naturally, while runoff from farm animals pollutes waterways and soil.
Air Water’s biomethane is already being used by a local dairy and other factories, to heat local homes and to run trucks and ships as pilot programmes.
Among participating local farmers is Eiji Mizushita, 58, who raises some 900 dairy cows that collectively generate over 40 tonnes of dung every day.
His farm has an industrial system to automatically collect the waste, ferment it, and turn it into biogas, fertiliser and recycled bedding materials for his animals.
Sales of biogas expands Mizushita’s income by about one percent, but he said the effort is worth it.
“I’m excited to think that our cow waste could be used to make it fly,” he said of the rocket.
“We need to properly dispose of and use manure. I also think that the government and society should take a more serious look at the importance of natural renewable energy and encourage its production.”
Shaturn5
@UK Hurling Bloke: Brilliant
Does this mean we can keep our cows? It’s more environmentally friendly than tradional rocket fuels? Early stages but come on….!
@TheGood Feign: The problem here is that the cows will have already produced their carbon, before we can use fossil fuel transport to get it to Japan . Doesn’t sound very promising to me.
@Patrick MC Dermott: hmm, I think you took my comment too seriously. But if I was to take it seriously I think I wouldn’t be so narrow on this. Think outside the box here. Is the only use for this rocket fuel? Does it even have to leave Ireland? Go more lateral on the ideas.
This is how Ireland becomes the next Norway . Forget oil and gas fields we have all the natural gases in our cow fields ..
@Big Beats: They turned it around so well. Won’t be a combustion engine in the country in 5 years. Green bonds, pensions done, etc. Norway sitting pretty and has an economy of only 5.3 million. We Irish aren’t even mentally capable of imagining that yet.
Hey diddle diddle……….
Anyone remember back in the 70′s there was this joke about power their TV from cow manure and how great it would be to hook a cow up to their TV.
I wonder if this is a green renewable source and could we claim cows now good for the environment?
@Niall O’Cofaigh: I hear ye, it was Nationwide, and it turned my parents into avid vegetable growers
I could contribute to this meself after scullin a feed of Guinness at the weekend.
The cow jumped over the moon….
They’re playing cowpats and engines
I call BS
Now THAT’S a headline…. Only bettered by the sub-headline when I clicked in. Wow.
I’d draw the line at taking my chances going up in that rocket
Pat on the back lads.
NO SH❗️T
Therefore the cows in the Dáil should divert their gas bagging to the lights around Grafton St.
Amagine the smell from the exhaust
@James Kelleher: Amagine? You had one job. One job.
I thought it was December not April
The Moo Cows are now Moon Cows.
I saw some report by teagasc advisor,shaloo I think his name was, saying farmers that bought beef dairy calves can make as much money,1200-1400 an ha, as a dairy farmer that milk the cows can..
So he is telling us that the dairy farmer is so nice that he is willing to let his boney ass calf sell for a few euros in order for the nice beef farmers can make loads of money..
If good money could be made on beef dairy, the dairy farmer would keep less cows to save on expense and just rare the calves themselves. Teagasc has been pushing these lies a couple of years now
@hi from heaven: where do you think up this stuff? It’s hard enough to understand what you are trying to say, because it obvious you don’t even know what you are saying yourself. You are on here all the time giving out about farmers, claiming to be a farmer, but obviously not true. You’re not from an arable or tillage background as you claimed to only recently have found out about some of the practices used with roundup. And you definitely ain’t from a beef or dairy background with your comment above. So what do you farm? Is it BS?
So with a bit of development our farmers can move to the moon.
Moo!
Can our rancher farmers run their tractors on it?
And will it add or reduce green house gas emissions?
Might get them out of their slurry problem.
India
Martin Kenny….It won’t let me reply directly so have to post separately…I am a beef farmer..88acres… Buy bull weanlings 9 months old and sell at mart one year later as bullocks and skulled if necessary.. each animal leaves circa 650-700 before costs..joined acres (cooperation )in tranche one and I and my father before me goes all the way back to reps one
Is that enough to prove that I am a farmer..I learnt about the roundup use on cereal crops whilst watching farmer Phil on YouTube with my son
If I was doctor I would hope that I would call out bs within the medical profession if it arose too..
So anyway the report that I referred to said that I could make as much money per ha as the dairy farmer does, if I bought his bull weanlings..if you agree with this then I doubt that you are a farmer
@hi from heaven: I don’t think you read that report fully, just took the info you wanted from it.
Laurence Shalloo stated that within the Dairybeef500 programme, the top farmers are achieving profits of 1200 to 1500 per hectare, which is similar to dairy farmers.
This is done through the use of sexed semen and other tools available to these farmers, including collaboration with dairy farmers. So, if you are going to reference an article as being rubbish, you should read it first. Maybe if you did, you could reach these profit levels yourself one day
It’s a pity the Journal does not have comments about what’s going on at our non borders in so many articles over the last few weeks. Most if the people who have concerns are Not far right but see the problems first hand this open border attitude. Northern Ireland are allowing people to land , people are flying in here with return tickets and going to the IPA office in Dublin having been in a safe country
Any Sociologist will tell you this is predictable with a quarter pod our population is now not Irish. Any political Scientist will tell you that all states MUST protect their borders. Did none of our politicians study Politics !!
News outlet should stop saying eg a Dublin man when it is a Lithuanian man LIVING in Dublin
Pushing it on people won’t ‘Make it So’
You still don’t answer my question, why don’t the dairy farmers cut back on milking costs and just rear the calves themselves, if the profit is the same… not only that but the calves would get a better thrive early in life by staying in the farm it was born..
Also 1200-1500 is what he used to shout about his report, when in actual fact his programme hopes to make 500euro on average (hopes)
Read teagasc literature going back 15years ago and they ran down the idea of finishing dairy born calves for profit, now all of a sudden they tell us how great it is, just to humour the government and ifa
@hi from heaven: because it is only the top dairy beef farmers that are able to match the profits of the average dairy farmers, not all of them.
What are these milking costs that you go on about?
Are you suggesting they become less intensive?
They have invested so much in dairy that they are not going to give up that investment to change their system.
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