This sounds extremely unhealthy for the cows.
Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
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Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#12I feel like I read this same story once a year or so for the past 5-6 years. Why hasn't this been commercialized yet?
No commercial incentive to do so. If we had any effective climate regulation, you'd see these things rapidly put into practice.
regulation can't change reality.
It's about as realistic as having congress declare the world flat.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#13Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#14There are many planet saving discoveries like these. There's also a catch, which is why the planet hasn't been saved yet. > “If we’re able to work out how to scale up the seaweed to such a level to that can feed all of the cows and the sheep and the goats around the world, then it’s going to have a huge impact on the climate; And there you go. That's the hard part that you cannot just hand-wave away. You also have to…
It’s a big of cosmic irony that cows will be eating what so called sea-cows evolved to eat by way of their natural environment.
The obviously this messes with cows’ gut bacteria. Wonder if it has any significant effects on cows or is it better all around?
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#15I saw some math once... not sure how correct it is, but it was something like given the co2-equivalent emissions of methane, even if all cows simply disappeared tomorrow, it would still only take care of about 5% of our global GHG emissions. So if that's true it wouldn't really be a gamechanger.
Still worth doing though (the seaweed, not the mass slaughtering)! And if everyone plants 350 trees then maybe we'll get somewhere.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#16Research takes time. There are researchers trying to grow the stuff on both US coasts. This articled details some of what is being done. They hope to test some of seaweed on cows at UC Davis soon. https://phys.org/news/2019-05-cultivate-seaweed-slashes-gree...
For several months, Smith has been experimenting in her lab with cultivating the seaweed to, among other things, maximize concentrations of bromoform—the compound that blocks the production of methane in cows, sheep, goats and other ruminant animals.
"This is the sporophyte," she said at her lab in La Jolla, holding one of a dozen flasks filled with the red algae, dancing in aerated seawater. "In this case, the bubbles are not as vigorous, allowing these puff balls to get bigger.
"By just manipulating nitrogen and phosphorous, we have already seen that we can double the concentrations of bromoform in just a week," she added.
As commenters have noted previously, it seems like using synthetic bromoform would be cheaper and more scalable. The rest of the seaweed appears to be incidental to the methane suppression. But maybe there are regulations about introducing new cattle feed additives that you can sidestep by mixing whole algae into the food. Or maybe they're already developing this with consumer branding/marketing in mind; "seaweed" sounds better than "bromoform."
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#17This sounds extremely unhealthy for the cows.
where did you get this? i haven't read anything towards this end.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#18There are many planet saving discoveries like these. There's also a catch, which is why the planet hasn't been saved yet. > “If we’re able to work out how to scale up the seaweed to such a level to that can feed all of the cows and the sheep and the goats around the world, then it’s going to have a huge impact on the climate; And there you go. That's the hard part that you cannot just hand-wave away. You also have to…
From an environmental perspective, it's easier to directly consume fruits, vegetables and nuts yourself, rather than have an animal do the same, then eat the animal. That doesn't address the human appetite for animal proteins, but there is beyond meat.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#19Is this even relevant anymore? I mean, with permafrost thawing and triggering sudden soil collapse - forming lakes and bubbling up even more methane... to what degree do cow methane emissions even matter when looking at the big picture? I tried googling for some numbers but didn't find any concrete credible sources other than "most methane comes from permafrost thawing"
Seriously? https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-m...
It wasn't even that hard to find one article. It might not be perfect, but you can clearly keep going.
And yes, it's one facet. We won't solve our problems just by fixing this, but your attitude definitely won't.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#20This sounds extremely unhealthy for the cows.
Why? Do we assume seaweed lacks the cellulose and minerals various grass an land weed varieties do?