A number of US media reported: On April 11, local time, a fire and explosion occurred on a large dairy farm in Dimeter County, Texas, USA, killing more than 18,000 cows and seriously injuring milking workers. Some media also said that the number of dead cows reached 20,000, which is the worst catastrophe in the history of dairy cows in the world.
Barn fires in rural America, as well as fires on dairy farms, are not uncommon, but why did such a tragic explosion occur? Could it be that the farmer was hiding some explosives?
"Blown up" cows
The cause of the explosion at the Dimeter dairy farm is still under investigation, and the fire chief involved in extinguishing the fire said it may have been caused by an accidental fire on the farm's equipment and insulation.
There are a lot of flammable materials in dairy farms: aging electrical equipment, thermal insulation foam, hay feed for cows, etc. can cause raging fires. But fires don't always cause explosions, and the culprit of the explosion at the Dimeter dairy farm is in the air, and the perpetrator is most likely the cow itself.
Screenshot of U.S. News
Do you remember New Zealand's "fart tax" on cattle and sheep from farmers in 2022? Some people think this is very nonsensical: cows fart also have to be taxed, which is also ridiculous! But people in New Zealand collect taxes for a good reason - cattle and sheep eat grass, but the farts released contain a lot of methane, a strong greenhouse gas and one of the causes of global warming, so they have to collect money to combat climate change.
Methane is not only a greenhouse gas, it is also very easy to burn and explode, and the main chemical component in the natural gas we use to cook daily fires is methane.
Cows emit 500 liters of methane a day
British scientists have done research on cows, they inserted a tube into the cow's stomach to collect gas, the other end of the tube is connected to a large plastic bag, experiments show that an adult cow produces about 500 liters of methane per day, most of this methane is emitted into the air by cows burping and farting.
Why do cattle produce methane?
This is because cattle have many bacteria that break down plant fibers in their stomachs and intestines. Cattle and sheep are ruminants, in order to avoid hunting by predators, they will first eat a large amount of forage in the rumen, and then take time to spit out a little bit to chew slowly, and then swallow it in another stomach chamber for digestion and absorption. During digestion, bacteria break down nutrients from plant fibers, while producing exhaust gases such as methane and carbon dioxide.
Cows exhaust through hiccups
Some people think that cattle and sheep release methane by fart, but in fact they mainly excrete methane through hiccups during rumination.
Methane is very flammable, when the volume of methane in the air is between 5.5% ~ 17%, a strong explosion will occur in case of fire. Therefore, a pen with a large number of cows must maintain air circulation and install a lot of ventilation equipment, which can lead to tragedy if the ventilation is poor or the equipment fails.
Ventilation should be installed in the dairy barn
The explosion at a dairy farm in Texas, USA, is not an isolated case, in 2014 an explosion occurred at a farm in Rasdorff, central Germany, and the investigation believed that the cause of the explosion was the accumulation of a large amount of methane in the cowshed, which caused a deflagration in the case of electrostatic sparks, and the accident killed dozens of cows.
Of course, the fact that these 18,000 cows in Texas were "killed by their own farts" has so far been media speculation. The explosion is part of a farm fire, which also produces a lot of smoke as it spreads, and the cattle are more likely to be burned, inhaled toxic fumes, or suffocated by lack of oxygen. It is also possible that the site of the explosion is not a shed where cattle are kept in captivity, but a biogas digester where a large amount of cow manure accumulates.
It is still necessary to wait for the results of the investigation to come to a conclusion.
The scene of an explosion at a Texas dairy farm
What is certain at present: farmers do not have private arms storage, tens of thousands of cattle in dairy farms will emit a lot of flammable methane, and there is also a lot of biogas stored in the farm's biogas digester, and the methane explodes in Mars at a certain concentration, the principle of which is similar to the fuel air bomb (cloud bomb) used in war. Some cows are indeed killed by their own farts.
#美得州农场爆炸 18,000 cows killed #