The green business of pig poop

Pig farmers in Sweden are way ahead of Aussie, even Kiwi farmers.

They are trialing a new network to sell the combustible gasses that are emitted by fertilizer.

There's over 130,000 tonnes of s**t, I mean excrement, produced on the 18 farmer's properties annually. The pilot bio-gas project where methane gas is extracted from the pig by-product before it is put out in the fields as fertilizer, is a world first.

The methane gas will be pumped to a purifying installation via a network of underground pipes and turned into bio-gas - or poop power!

The amount of energy expect to be developed in the first two-year phase, will be the equivalent of 2.1 million lts of gas (actually, I should say petrol in this instance). That's enough to run 30 trucks, 30 buses and 250 cars for a year.

"I have a lot of fertilizer from all my pigs and if one could create gas and fuel for cars and buses from my fertilizer I thought it would be a great idea. That is why I got interested you see," says Gunnar, a pig farmer.

"Well I hope that I will be able to make loads of money. I hope that I will become a proper oil sheik!"

Hat Tip: John Robinson