Clean manure
When people talk about air quality, they usually don’t use the word – manure – in the same sentence. Maybe they should. We’ll see why. Today. On Engineering Works!
The generating plants that produce the electricity we use for almost everything also produce a lot of air pollution. They’re one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s big targets in its efforts to clean up the air we breathe.
One of the most important things the E-P-A wants to get out of the air is a gas called – nitrogen oxide. Or Nox. Power plants that burn coal puff out a lot of Nox. Nox is bad stuff. It’s one of the main ingredients that leads to ground level ozone. It’s also involved in acid rain and helps make greenhouse gases.
Engineers at Texas A&M University have found that if you add cattle manure to the coal that power plants burn, the amount of NOX that comes out of the smokestack goes down. What seems to happen is that compounds in the manure combine with the nitrogen that would otherwise go into Nox.
The E-P-A has tested the idea at a couple of its laboratories, and it really does work. Burning the manure also could get rid of the smelly stuff from areas where there’s a lot of cattle. That reduces air pollution of another sort. Keeps runoff from getting into the water supply, too.
We’re going to go do somehing about the air quality around here. See you next time.
