I eat chicken mostly. Anyone know if chickend also contribute significant methane?
Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
131–140 of 409 posts
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's easier to consume those things... until winter arrives. Unless you support the massively carbon intensive process of shipping ~80% of each hemisphere's food supply to the other during winter, this isn't viable. Even if that is acceptable, it isn't sustainable.
Shipping food that doesn’t need to be refrigerated or airlifted really has a minuscule carbon footprint.
Chopping down and burning rainforest carbon sinks to plant food crops, now that’s where the real problem is.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
The mechanism is mostly understood, but not perfectly. Most people know that a cow has multiple stomachs. The second stomach is called a rumen. A cow chews it's cud (essentially big mashes of grass and grain, which a stomach cannot digest). This cud is passed through the first stomach and into the rumen, which contains beneficial, digestive bacteria. The bacteria in the rumen essentially ferment the cud and make comp…
So, essentially they are poisoning the cows ever so slightly?
In the sense that humans eating capsaicin are poisoning themselves slightly; and not the sense in which humans drinking alcohol are poisoning themselves slightly. It’s such a different order of magnitude that there’s a qualitative, not just quantitative, change in the body’s response.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the mechanism behind methane reduction?
The mechanism is mostly understood, but not perfectly. Most people know that a cow has multiple stomachs. The second stomach is called a rumen. A cow chews it's cud (essentially big mashes of grass and grain, which a stomach cannot digest). This cud is passed through the first stomach and into the rumen, which contains beneficial, digestive bacteria. The bacteria in the rumen essentially ferment the cud and make comp…
What about creating bromoform directly in a lab? Is that possible? If so, then direct application to the feed wouldnt require en massed sea farming.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#135My 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…
> early indications in research of some amazing additional benefits – improved milk production, increased immunity, improved food conversion ratio What are the chances the gains here might be on the order where we could stop dosing cattle with antibiotics?
Basically none. We will continue to dose cattle with antibiotics as long as there is additional gain from doing so, regardless of how profitable cattle without antibiotics are.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#136My 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…
If AT can do this for bovines, I wonder what the health benefits for us could be
Reducing methane emissions is not a health benefit.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 - tim…
> 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?
A big part of this is bitterness over the way nuclear energy has been treated. We used to have decades, we spent billions upon billions on renewables while demonizing nuclear energy, and now we don't have decades. Hell, it's very likely that we'd have fusion by now if all that money and effort was redirected to fusion research.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#138“if Australia could grow enough of the seaweed for every cow in the nation, the country could cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 10%”
Still not making a significant dent in how much damage is done by the meat industry
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would be a tremendous benefit if it can be deployed at scale, which I'm sure it eventually could. HOWEVER, This solution fails to address the excessive amount of water consumption required to raise these cows. fresh, clean water is already becoming a major global crisis. The simplest and most effective solution to ensuring our survival as a species remains switching to a plant-based diet. Too many people adopt a…
There is no evidence of a fresh water shortage. We had the wettest year in 125 years in the U.S. this year. Where is this coming from? Water usage is a local issue, not a global one. Certain local communities have to watch water usage depending on rainfall. Certain ones do not. Either way, cows drink water and pee water. Water goes through the same cycle it has for billions of years. The U.S. used to have a wild biso…
But free roaming bison drinking water is different than cows in CAFOs where large amounts of waters are heavily polluted. Which sounds also like a local problem to me but still is a big problem to some comunities.
Re: Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
The mechanism is mostly understood, but not perfectly. Most people know that a cow has multiple stomachs. The second stomach is called a rumen. A cow chews it's cud (essentially big mashes of grass and grain, which a stomach cannot digest). This cud is passed through the first stomach and into the rumen, which contains beneficial, digestive bacteria. The bacteria in the rumen essentially ferment the cud and make comp…
What about creating bromoform directly in a lab? Is that possible? If so, then direct application to the feed wouldnt require en massed sea farming.
I was reading about it on wikipedia, it used to be produced in large quantities.