LIVE SCIENCE - Dairy farms produce huge amounts of potent greenhouse gases. But now, scientists say these farms can slash their methane emissions by covering cow-poop ponds with a giant tarp.
Scientists recorded an 80% reduction in the methane emissions of a dairy farm in California after its owners installed a "digester" — a system that traps gases over manure ponds and converts them into fuel, according to a new study.
"When the system is built well and managed carefully, the emissions can really drop. That's what we saw here," study co-author Francesca Hopkins, an assistant professor of climate change and sustainability at the University of California, Riverside, said in a statement.