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Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

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Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#81

Post by konschubert »

abainbridge wrote: post #63
ehsankia wrote: post #51

Earlier 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…

One also has to consider that the methane decays over a matter of decades. Other than CO2, which stays in the atmosphere until it is taken out.

So, even if methane takes a big share in current greenhouse emissions, its share in the accumulated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will be lower.

The climate change it causes is temporary. (Disregarding runaway effects.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#82

Post by crispweed »

malloryerik wrote: post #54
louprado wrote: post #33

For 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…

As other posters have said, it seems like it can be tricky to incentivise cattle owners to add algae to their feed, check this has actually been added, in proportions that have the desired effect, and so on.

But how about if governments provide subsidised feed centrally, instead, with the algae added?

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#83

Post by slavik81 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #75
slavik81 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A carbon tax or cap and trade system would create such an economic incentive.

What's to discourage the cattle owner from claiming their cows produce no methane due to seaweed use & then collecting the cap and trade/carbon tax benefit while not bothering with the seaweed? More broadly, how does cap and trade/carbon tax measure the footprint of a business in the first place? I've found no material on the subject but my guess is that they do it based on the power plant/fuel you're using & how muc…

The possibility of an IRS audit would discourage lying about it. If you're claiming to be feeding your cattle seaweed, you're going to have to buy it. Just like any other business expense, you'll need receipts. And once you have the seaweed feed, you might as well use it.

To be honest, I'm not sure how the emissions measuring is done, but I think it's handled on the supply-side for fuel and electricity in existing implementations. Suppliers just pass on the cost of taxes. For direct agricultural emissions from cattle, you could probably use an estimate based on the average emissions per cow, and provide a deduction based on feed. Maybe with an exemption for small farms.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#84

Post by lucideer »

justwalt wrote: post #47
adenta wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

Here’s one that I found: https://www.carbonbrief.org/grass-fed-beef-will-not-help-tac...

That article says the study found that grazed beef release more carbon than the carbon offset by soil sequestration. It doesn't say it releases more carbon then grain-fed, and actually, while I haven't read the source study, the general implication in the article seems to lean toward grazed beef releasing less than grain-fed (just not, according to the researchers, enough less to be carbon-neutral).

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#85

Post by askvictor »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #9
eloff wrote: post #3

So this begs the mildly racist question, do Japanese people fart? Can they light their farts on fire? Maybe not if the seaweed in the diet kills off methane producing bacteria.

i don't have an answer to your question. but Cooks Illustrated reports that adding kelp to beans makes the beans easier to cook: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6385-flavoring-drie...

Not just cook, apparently the enzymes in kelp assist in digestion of the beans. Which also causes less farts (bean farts are due to indigestible proteins? Fibre? passing to the intestine and fermenting by the bacteria there). So I wonder if this is a similar mechanism.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#87

Post by beojan »

crispweed wrote: post #82
malloryerik wrote: post #54

Earlier 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…

As other posters have said, it seems like it can be tricky to incentivise cattle owners to add algae to their feed, check this has actually been added, in proportions that have the desired effect, and so on. But how about if governments provide subsidised feed centrally, instead, with the algae added?

Or just legislate that feed manufacturers must add the algae?

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#88

Post by ItsMe000001 »

jammi wrote: post #35
askvictor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, but I believe that methane emissions from cows are burps rather than farts, and there's a lot more fermentation going on in a cow's rumen than in our guts, so there might be some other mechanism at play here. Or perhaps not.

OTOH, aren't farts just unreleased burps that passed into the intestines.

Human burps are air that you swallowed, or from CO2 from either drinks or produced when stomach acid mixes with bicarbonate. That CO2 does not necessarily has to come out as a burp, it can also pass into the blood stream. We don't have a rumen like cows do, where bacteria start breaking down the food. Our stomachs are mostly free of bacteria (except for things like helicobacter pylori). All our bacteria-activity is in the large intestine. A lot of the gases are absorbed and exhaled through the lungs, not all of it has to come out through the rectum.

Much better explanation and a lot more details: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK417/

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#89

Post by elbear »

I wonder: would there be any negative side-effects on the cows? Another way of putting it: is methane production in the gut of the cow a consequence of a useful process or is it something the cows can live without?

Another question to ponder: would seaweed farming at such scale have negative consequences?

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#90

Post by Alex3917 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #75
slavik81 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A carbon tax or cap and trade system would create such an economic incentive.

What's to discourage the cattle owner from claiming their cows produce no methane due to seaweed use & then collecting the cap and trade/carbon tax benefit while not bothering with the seaweed? More broadly, how does cap and trade/carbon tax measure the footprint of a business in the first place? I've found no material on the subject but my guess is that they do it based on the power plant/fuel you're using & how muc…

> how does cap and trade/carbon tax measure the footprint of a business in the first place

Satellites, sensors on Google street view cars, etc.

https://www.ted.com/talks/fred_krupp_what_if_we_tracked_meth...

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