A number of US media reported on April 11 (local time) that an explosion occurred at a large dairy farm in Dimeter County, Texas, USA, killing at least 18,000 cows.
After the incident, netizens commented one after another.
Some say 18,000 cows are incredible, and even more incredible is that so many cows died and only one person was seriously injured.
Some people also say that the owner of the dairy farm is hiding some "contraband", otherwise why did the dairy farm explode so violently.
Netizens had questions, but one netizen's comment rushed directly to the top, he thought that the explosion of the dairy farm may be related to the farting of cows.
Don't say, scientific analysis, it's really possible!
An explosion occurred on the dairy farm, killing 18,000 cows
The explosion occurred at 7:30 p.m. local time on April 10, and it can be seen from live video that although it was getting late, visibility was still high.
The local police revealed that at about 7:30 p.m., they received eight police calls, all of which were on fire at a local dairy farm.
It is reported that this dairy farm belongs to a large enterprise with more than 20,000 cows, and at the time of the incident, the cows were moved to the waiting area, which is why such a heavy number of casualties occurred.
The local fire department is currently conducting further investigations, has ruled out the factor of malicious destruction, the cause of the explosion is currently concentrated on the dairy farm hardware facilities, some staff claim that it is likely to be related to the overheating of the vacuum vessel.
To netizens do not think so, after all, 18,000 cows are not a small number, cows are relatively large, weight is also very high, a cow feeding environment of more than 3 square meters, 18,000 cows, at least 54,000 square meters of feeding environment, at the same time such a large dairy farm, is required to strictly implement the fire inspection, do not pass the fire inspection is not allowed to open.
Because netizens believe that in a large dairy farm, there is a fire, and there must be a problem with the fire prevention system.
In addition, the explosion that can cause the death of 18,000 cows is not small, and netizens believe that this is likely to be an ordinary explosion.
After all, 18,000 cows is a large herd, and the largest bomb in the United States today only killed 86 people when it was used in Afghanistan, which seems to be a big gap compared with the power of the dairy farm explosion.
Therefore, everyone is looking elsewhere, especially the cows themselves.
Cows produce large amounts of methane per day, which is a very explosive gas
Firefighters analyzed that the explosion is likely to be caused by a fire, after all, there are many items in the dairy farm that are very easy to burn, such as pipeline insulation and fed hay, etc. may cause burning.
But the burning only fire, not the explosion, so everyone turned their attention back to the cows themselves.
Because the cow itself, there are two major reasons why it can cause an explosion!
The first reason is that some people wonder if it is caused by the cow farting too much.
Don't laugh, although it sounds a bit outrageous, it is quite possible.
Some scientists have discovered many years ago that cow farts contain a lot of methane, and methane is a flammable and explosive gas.
Methane has an explosion limit, and when the concentration reaches a certain level, it will explode quickly when it encounters an open flame.
Methane (CH4) is a colorless and odorless gas, the spontaneous ignition temperature is 538 °C, the color of the flame when burned is blue, and the maximum temperature can reach 1400 °C.
When the methane content in the air reaches 5.3% to 14.0%, an explosion will occur in case of an open flame, and when methane and chlorine are mixed, the temperature of direct sunlight will cause its explosion.
A cow produces 500 liters of methane a day due to farting and breathing, and scientists have found that cows produce an average of 500 liters of methane a day by installing a gas collection device in the rumens of cows.
These 20,000 cows were all gathered together at the time of the incident, and if the ventilation is not good, once there is an open flame, it is indeed very likely to cause an explosion.
In 2014, a cowshed on a German farm also exploded, and it was later found that the indoor gas emission was poor at the location of more than 90 dairy cows, and the exhaust system was malfunctioning, and the cows came together because the friction caused the appearance of static electricity, which eventually "ignited" the methane, causing the explosion.
Therefore, large cattle farms, there will be ventilation devices indoors, I used to think that this device was for cattle to blow air, but later I learned that it was for gas exchange, to prevent the explosion of the cattle farm.
The second reason was the explosion caused by biogas in the cow manure accumulation tank
As early as 20 years ago, the mainland vigorously developed the use of biogas, and many rural friends' homes have gradually put biogas digesters, putting cow dung and pig manure into it, and producing biogas after fermentation for power generation and cooking.
In foreign countries, cow manure from large farms has strict treatment procedures, and only after fermentation of cow manure can be thrown into the land as fertilizer, while untreated cow manure is not allowed to do any spilling, because it will pollute the environment.
In cow dung, a large amount of biogas will be produced, and the biogas produced by "a lump" of cow dung can completely make cow dung "explode".
In January of this year, a young lady in Guangdong saw a lump of cow dung on the ground, and she and her friend suddenly remembered the bad taste, and took a firecracker, intending to put it on the cow dung and light it.
As a result, although the firecracker was inserted, it caused the biogas inside the cow dung to burn when it was ignited, and before the flame touched the lead of the firecracker, the cow dung exploded, and there was no reaction time to dissolve the sister.
And the little sister was still wearing a white cotton coat at this time, although the final picture was not given to the little sister, but you can imagine how heavy her psychological shadow would be at that time.
When I was a child, my favorite cannon firing link was to count the fried cow dung, and the blowing up of clean and fried puddles did not "stimulate" by frying cow dung, more than a dozen friends together, some people lit a fire and shouted, often fried a body of cow dung, and went home to be "violently beaten" by their mother.
At that time, it was just strange why a small firecracker caused such great power, and after going to school, I learned that there was biogas in cow dung, and the biogas itself was easy to explode.
Nowadays, children throw firecrackers into the sewers, manhole covers will explode and fly several meters high, and the news of eventually harming children is everywhere, and this is also the cause of biogas.
At the beginning of 2022, Germany also plans to build a large biogas digester to collect biogas and use biogas power generation to cope with the shortage of Russian natural gas supply, and Germany is also the world's highest biogas utilization country, with more than 12,000 biogas energy projects in the territory, which can generate 20 billion kWh of electricity per year and solve 4.9% of Germany's electricity demand.
It is not surprising that cow manure from large foreign farms now needs to be collected, and a large amount of biogas is produced to cause an explosion.
Write at the end
At present, there is no specific cause of the explosion, and the local fire department has no further investigations, so although the possibility of a methane gas explosion caused by cows farting is there, it is not the final result, and everything has to wait for the investigation of the local fire department, based on its results.
But at present, cows do fart, a large amount of milk gathered together, does cause the proportion of methane gas in the air to rise, and cows gathered together will indeed rub to generate static electricity.
Therefore, it is indeed possible that the cow was scared to death because of its own "fart", after all, there is a scientific basis for this, but in the end, the local fire department needs to determine.
Here, we also remind mainland farms that large-scale cattle farms must do a good job of ventilation measures, and in this case, we must learn a lesson and not let such a funny "tragedy" happen on the mainland.