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Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

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Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

#41

Post by Spooky23 »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #18
alphakappa wrote: post #3

There 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.

No, it’s not. Most of the places where nuts are grown in industrial scale are water challenged.

Animal agriculture is unsustainable at the scale we operate in today in the United States. Meat doesn’t equal feedlot, and pastured ruminant agriculture helps sustain the land.

Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

#43

Post by sjg007 »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #18
alphakappa wrote: post #3

There 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.

Humans cannot get or synthesize all of the amino acids from a plant diet.. we need animals or chemistry.

Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

#44

Post by m0zg »

goodalgae wrote: post #26

My company is currently working to grow Asparagopsis Taxiformis, here in the US, for this purpose. I agree with comments that we have big issues to tackle in regards to methane sinks failing, such as permafrost, and there are things to be said about people moving en masse to plant based diets – but, the future will always be a mix of tomorrow and today. Many people will still eat beef, and we need to ensure we reduce…

Seems like just growing seaweed won't be enough though. You'd have to grow it _in close proximity to the cows_, otherwise there are other greenhouse gases that will be emitted before the cows can eat it. It's also unclear to me what this means in terms of water consumption, and therefore sustainability. I'd be curious to hear how (if at all) these issues could be addressed.

Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

#45

Post by nightski »

esotericn wrote: post #32
tunesmith wrote: post #15

I 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 so…

Some variant of this same comment is on every single thread about this here. We need to tackle all of the "only 5%" issues.

Or transportation + electricity which is nearly 60% in the U.S.

Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

#46

Post by baroffoos »

esotericn wrote: post #32
tunesmith wrote: post #15

I 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 so…

Some variant of this same comment is on every single thread about this here. We need to tackle all of the "only 5%" issues.

Exactly, every part of this problem is divided up so much that individually nothing is significant. Its all just snowflakes in the avalanche.

The per country stats are not very useful either because as far as the environment is concerned countries do not exist. You could draw a line half way through india and call both halves a new country and now both parts have reduced their emissions by 50% but thats not a very useful observation.

Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

#47

Post by baroffoos »

nightski wrote: post #45
esotericn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some variant of this same comment is on every single thread about this here. We need to tackle all of the "only 5%" issues.

Or transportation + electricity which is nearly 60% in the U.S.

And then on the thread where someone proposes reducing transport emissions in the US there will be a comment "But transport in the US is only x% of global emissions"

There needs to be action taken on every single one of the sources all at once.

Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

#48

Post by baroffoos »

moultano wrote: post #27
briandear wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No they aren't the biggest part of the problem, but the difficulty is that we have to solve the whole thing. Carbon emissions need to get to zero and then go negative. That means ideally we need solutions for every contributor, no matter how small.

And this is one of the ideal solutions where we can make things much much better without giving up anything at all.

Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

#49

Post by sak5sk »

nightski wrote: post #45
esotericn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some variant of this same comment is on every single thread about this here. We need to tackle all of the "only 5%" issues.

Or transportation + electricity which is nearly 60% in the U.S.

It's pretty clear that the HN crowd wants to solve a mute problem with bioengineering and hacking. The ACTUAL problems, you know, the stuff that's so daunting that few startups will ever take on - well, we burry our heads in the sand. Any mention of this fact gets you downvoted.

The same story with energy generation. HN has a big crush on nuclear. Nevermind that nuclear takes decades to approve and to build out - time that we just don't have. But hey, as long as we can feel good about it, right?

Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

#50

Post by Spooky23 »

HillRat wrote: post #40
tunesmith wrote: post #15

I 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 so…

5% doesn’t solve the problem, but it makes it more tractable. Enough 5% (or 4%, 3%, 2%…) solutions that integrate well into the existing economy, and you get GHG emissions into a range where the complex, expensive, and disruptive (in the traditional sense of the term) game-changing technologies become reasonable. At some point we will end up diverting a sizable percentage of global productivity to either scrubbing CO…

...or you could leave the cows alone and impose some regulatory controls on oil/gas production and yield that reduction in a few months.

Big money is hoping to disrupt agriculture by shifting to fake meat substitutes. Shifting to some sort of soy/pea/coconut mix isn’t much better for the earth or human health.

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