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New research has found methane emissions from slurry stores on dairy farms may be up to five times greater than official statistics suggest—and highlights the huge potential for turning them into a renewable energy source.

The study shows that if captured and turned into biogas, emitted methane could be worth more than £400m a year to the dairy sector in saved fuel costs, or around £52,500 for an average-sized dairy farm.

Capture technology already exists, and if rolled out across the EU dairy herd, the conversion of methane to biofuel could reduce emissions equivalent to an estimated 5.8% of the remaining global temperature rise budget, if the temperature were to be kept to 1.5°C of warming.

Conducted by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the International Fugitive Emissions Abatement Association (IFEAA), the research is based on measurements from two dairy farms in Cornwall, England. Together with a growing body of international field research, it suggests that the "Tier 2" calculations used by countries to report their emissions annually to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) may not be robust.

Current National Inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions report that enteric emissions—those coming directly from animals' digestive systems—are three to nine times greater than those from manure management, including the storing and spreading of slurry and manure.

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