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Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

foodtank.com

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Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#151

Post by kmm »

donatj wrote: post #95

Serious question, could there be any way to instead capture said methane and use it for fuel? I feel like if the farms could make a decent buck off capturing it there’d be more incentive than say paying for seaweed.

The article says that a cow produces about 100 kg of methane a year. At 0.7 kg/m^3, that's about 142 cubic meters of gas per year. Natural gas costs a few dollars per thousand cubic meters... So even without going into efficiency and the cost of capturing and purifying, it's definitely not going to be worth it.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#152

Post by ppeetteerr »

Mister_X wrote: post #59

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, because right now the West coast from San Francisco North to at least Fort Bragg, has been suffering a kelp die off of great proportions. No one is quite sure whats going on, but apparently due to climate change, or at least warmer ocean water from further South that we've had for the last 5 or more years, has caused the kelp to die off at a rapid rate, to the point o…

According to the article, it's difficult to produce that large of an amount of seaweed. Probably not going to happen in the next 5 years.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#154

Post by ppeetteerr »

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…

Either we impose a gas credit system on the cattle industry or, more likely, governments subsidize dairy farmers that use algae in their feed. Either way, there is no financial incentive to produce less methane. It will require regulation

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#157

Post by Chris_Jay »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #69
abainbridge wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Potency is typically assumed in the industry, the volume of methane is trivial compared to volume of CO2.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#158

Post by tnorthcutt »

skosch wrote: post #139
slfnflctd wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent article, thank you for linking it. I love and appreciate my vegan friends (have been one in the past, might be again in the future), but they need to be realistic about convincing others to change deeply-ingrained eating habits. Short of an apocalyptic event, you could spend 100% of your spare time and energy trying to get people to stop eating meat and you'd be lucky to get a dozen lasting conversions. It'…

The economics of veggie proselytism actually look pretty good. Animal Charity Evaluators found that for every $11 spent in online ads, you could make one person go to a website, sign up with their email, and pledge to go vegetarian for a year. The average vegetarian [1] produces 1.5 metric tons less CO2eq per year, so this means that the online ads decrease carbon at a cost of $7.40 per ton. That's cheaper than buyin…

I don't understand your math.

Wouldn't you need to look at the difference in CO2eq between an average non-vegetarian and vegetarian?

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#159

Post by ajmurmann »

Mister_X wrote: post #59

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, because right now the West coast from San Francisco North to at least Fort Bragg, has been suffering a kelp die off of great proportions. No one is quite sure whats going on, but apparently due to climate change, or at least warmer ocean water from further South that we've had for the last 5 or more years, has caused the kelp to die off at a rapid rate, to the point o…

It's horrifying that this is happening and I haven't heard about it and all we are talking about is if and how some dude paid a stripper.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#160

Post by skosch »

tnorthcutt wrote: post #158
skosch wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics of veggie proselytism actually look pretty good. Animal Charity Evaluators found that for every $11 spent in online ads, you could make one person go to a website, sign up with their email, and pledge to go vegetarian for a year. The average vegetarian [1] produces 1.5 metric tons less CO2eq per year, so this means that the online ads decrease carbon at a cost of $7.40 per ton. That's cheaper than buyin…

I don't understand your math. Wouldn't you need to look at the difference in CO2eq between an average non-vegetarian and vegetarian?

Sorry, typo – I meant to say less than. Fixed.
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