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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

#161

Post by the8472 »

John_KZ wrote: post #108
HillaryBriss wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting info about Bromoform from Wikipedia: Bromoform is the main trihalomethane produced in beachfront salt water swimming pools with concentrations as high as 1.2 ppm (parts per million). Concentrations in freshwater pools are 1000 times lower. Occupational skin exposure limits are set at 0.5 ppm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromoform i wonder if any of the bromine winds up in the cow's milk or meat

Also there's no info on the nutritional uptake of the cows. Killing the methane-producing bacteria could potentially mean killing the digestive powerhouse of the animal.

It does not kill the methane-producing bacteria, it just inhibits a specific enzymatic pathway.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#162

Post by logfromblammo »

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…

It is too optimistic to assume that anyone who makes a pledge on a website follows through on it for even one day.

It's the online equivalent to honking your horn for the protesters holding up signs next to the road. Easily done; easily forgotten.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#163

Post by graeme »

jessaustin wrote: post #123
graeme wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There are already people intentionally buying beef straight from producers, to ensure that it's "grass fed". If warming enthusiasts cared as much about this issue as these paleo dieters do about avoiding flavorful beef, they could do the same. As you say, the effect would be small, but why would that stop anyone from doing it?

Oh I reread the thread and saw you were only addressing whether there is an immediate incentive. Yes, you're right, there certainly would be one, and it probably could be organic/paleo level successful. Probably doing it privately successfully would help rally support for an eventual law.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#164

Post by BatFastard »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #154
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

Which means it won't happen for at least 3 more years.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#165

Post by rocqua »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #38

Unfortunately, there are fishermen that are no longer able to make a living because they have depleted the fish in the area they fish, so now they are looking for a new way to make a living. Farming seaweed seems to be a possible alternative to fishing. We'll be seeing a lot more stories about how great seaweed is as the industry starts to make a market for it. Feeding cattle grass will reduce the methane just as muc…

> Feeding cattle grass will reduce the methane just as much as seaweed, I bet.

From the article, it only takes a few percent of seaweed in the cow diet to reduce methane. I'd guess the same doesn't hold for grass. Cows that get to go into a pasture probably get a few percent of grass.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#166

Post by Chardok »

ransom1538 wrote: post #133
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…

"catastrophe as the Australian coral die off," I went deep sea fishing in Florida a few months back. It took forever to get to a place where there were actual fish. I asked the captain why, basically, he knows where there are large shipping container wrecks and that is where all the sea life is. Thing is, building coral and sea life is super simple [same with killing it]. You literally can just lay down wire grids an…

"Thing is, building coral and sea life is super simple [same with killing it]."

That is just simply not true. While it might be helpful to lay down structures for sea life, ocean acidification [1], algal blooms [2], and climate change are all contributing to mass death of sea life, and fast enough where we will see many species go extinct in our lifetime (bluefin tuna will be there soon [3]).

Even related to your own fishing story, check out the fish sizes and diversity in the 1950s compared to now. [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom

[3] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/07/060724-blue...

[4] https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/02/05/257046530/b...

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#167

Post by rocqua »

tomohawk wrote: post #119

Perhaps they should study the nutritional impacts of the resulting beef before they get too far with this. Grass fed beef is much tastier and much more nutritious than feed lot fed beef. Does feeding the seaweed reduce the need for using antibiotics required when feeding corn to cattle? That would be a real win.

In what sense is grass fed beef more nutritious? It's a rather nebulous term, hence my question.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#168

Post by christophclarke »

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…

Not sure about the situation on the West Coast, but based on a recent 60 Minutes episode there seems to be a burgeoning commercial kelp farming market on the East Coast.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seaweed-farming-and-its-surpris...

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#169

Post by logfromblammo »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #96
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.

Yes, but it seems to need a surgical insertion into one of the cows stomachs so is probably dangerous / expensive. https://phys.org/news/2008-07-cow-backpacks-methane-gas.html

Fistulation surgery isn't all that dangerous or expensive. The major expense is in keeping the rumen port clean and the cow healthy and free from infection afterward. It's a significant amount of work and consumable supplies, that has to be done by a human worker, every day, for as long as the cow has the port.

Granted, a gas port should be smaller than one large enough to stick your hand through, and pull stomach contents out of, but even so, an entire herd of ported cows would not be able to pay for the additional ranch hand work necessary to keep them alive. You need a port-cleaning and health-monitoring robot, at minimum.

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