Buenos Aires, April 21 (RHC) – Argentina's National Institute for Agricultural Technology (INTA) has invented a way to convert cow flatulence into usable energy, and it involves putting a plastic backpack on a cow, Mercopress news agency reports.

Livestock are responsible for a remarkable amount of global methane emissions, which are a major cause of global warming.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, cow flatulence and burping, accounts for 5.5 million metric tons of methane per year in the United States, that's 20% of total US methane emissions.

According to the INTA experimentation, tubes run from the backpack into the cows' rumen (or biggest digestive tract). They extract about 300 liters of methane a day, which is enough to run a car or a fridge for about 24 hours.

Pablo Soranda, INTA press officer, said that the project is more about making a point than it is about converting people to a way of life. Soranda said: “We can imagine a future farm with a couple of these cows used to provide energy to satisfy the farm’s needs.”