Where does the methane go? Does the hydrogen and carbon just move to the dung and meat? Genuinely curious.
Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
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Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe grass fed cattle produce more methane actually.
Source?
I live on a dairy. Totally not a controlled study, but the cows digestive systems can't handle grazing as well as they can handle a nutritionist-controlled diet. Their manure gets bubbly with gas when eating grass.
Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
#63With an ag background I've been following this story for a long time. It has excited enough interest in America that trials are underway, I believe off the coast of Maine to grow red algae but I can't find the link. But they've already had luck growing red algae off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Molokai. I've been to Molokai and although there's a lot of farmland there it's laying idle. Most of the land was use…
Can anyone provide a sense of scale and impact if these results were to hold and if the majority of the world beef production were to switch to it? My understanding is that around half of the world's greenhouse gas comes from livestock. Would it mean that this could cut our emissions by half? Would it be therefore much more cost efficient to have the government invest is growing and distributing red algae than whatev…
> My understanding is that around half of the world's greenhouse gas comes from livestock
That's not right. The highest number I've been able to find for the whole of agriculture is 24% of world greenhouse gas emissions.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
About 25% of that is methane from livestock (http://old.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/greenhouse-gas-emissi...)
So livestock is about 6% of total greenhouse gas emissions.
Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
#64Even so, animal ag still uses lots of land, water, risks pollution of air and water, pandemic and antibotic resistance.
probably easier to get animals to eat kelp than to get humans to stop eating animals.
Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there any immediate economic incentive to adding algae into feed? Wouldn't you agree that markets don't deal effectively with many or most commercial endeavors' unwanted side effects (negative externalities), and so authorities often need to step in when market failure causes damage? In this case, if the science is real, a global treaty would seem in order to simply mandate the effective use of seaweed in cow feed…
> Is there any immediate economic incentive to adding algae into feed? You can charge more for it? Many consumers are willing to pay more for environmentally-friendlier options now.
1. That would only affect a small portion of the global market
2. You'd have verification problems, same as with a lot of things now claimed to be organic/free range/etc but aren't really in the sense people expect
Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
#66With an ag background I've been following this story for a long time. It has excited enough interest in America that trials are underway, I believe off the coast of Maine to grow red algae but I can't find the link. But they've already had luck growing red algae off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Molokai. I've been to Molokai and although there's a lot of farmland there it's laying idle. Most of the land was use…
Can anyone provide a sense of scale and impact if these results were to hold and if the majority of the world beef production were to switch to it? My understanding is that around half of the world's greenhouse gas comes from livestock. Would it mean that this could cut our emissions by half? Would it be therefore much more cost efficient to have the government invest is growing and distributing red algae than whatev…
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Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
#67> Asparagopsis produces a compound called Bromoform (CHBR3)
Which is an animal carcinogen according to Wikipedia:
Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
#68With an ag background I've been following this story for a long time. It has excited enough interest in America that trials are underway, I believe off the coast of Maine to grow red algae but I can't find the link. But they've already had luck growing red algae off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Molokai. I've been to Molokai and although there's a lot of farmland there it's laying idle. Most of the land was use…
Can anyone provide a sense of scale and impact if these results were to hold and if the majority of the world beef production were to switch to it? My understanding is that around half of the world's greenhouse gas comes from livestock. Would it mean that this could cut our emissions by half? Would it be therefore much more cost efficient to have the government invest is growing and distributing red algae than whatev…
Your figure is from cowspiracy - it's worth looking up the film to discover its many other inaccuracies.
https://newint.org/blog/2016/02/10/cowspiracy-stampeding-in-...
Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can anyone provide a sense of scale and impact if these results were to hold and if the majority of the world beef production were to switch to it? My understanding is that around half of the world's greenhouse gas comes from livestock. Would it mean that this could cut our emissions by half? Would it be therefore much more cost efficient to have the government invest is growing and distributing red algae than whatev…
> My understanding is that around half of the world's greenhouse gas comes from livestock That's not right. The highest number I've been able to find for the whole of agriculture is 24% of world greenhouse gas emissions. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... About 25% of that is methane from livestock ( http://old.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/greenhouse-gas-emissi... ) So livestock is about 6…
As far as I can see, those references do not mention whether they have corrected for the fact that methane is a ~20x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Are they counting per volume or per potency? That is an incredibly important distinction. Which, to be honest, they should have made, one way or the other.
Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
#70For a moment this was the best news I had read in years, until I noticed the story is a year old and the research paper[1] is two years old. Hopefully there has been some progress in the past years but if that were the case we would should have seen another headline by now. At least I haven't. Normally 2 years wouldn't be much time to go from a research paper to production. But this appears to be a simple solution to…
Is there any immediate economic incentive to adding algae into feed? Wouldn't you agree that markets don't deal effectively with many or most commercial endeavors' unwanted side effects (negative externalities), and so authorities often need to step in when market failure causes damage? In this case, if the science is real, a global treaty would seem in order to simply mandate the effective use of seaweed in cow feed…
A carbon tax or cap and trade system would create such an economic incentive.