Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
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Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
#2This is so awesome, I've been waiting to see if this would make it into commercial feed. This could be a big help if it can quickly become more of a standard.
Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
#3Worth noting that methane is up to 84 times as damaging as CO2 in the atmosphere upon release. (https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-other-important-greenhou...)
That means that (ironically I guess) this has the potential to be just about the biggest bang-for-buck weapon we have against climate change in the next decade.
I don't envy the researchers having to explain it to their kids later though.
"What'd you do in the great climate war mom?"
"I made cow farts less stinky."
"But seriously what did you do?"
groan
Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
#4Messing with the rumen will either increase or decrease the productivity.
Methane is high in calories so it should intuitively increase the productivity, which they currently think is true but unproven -
https://research.csiro.au/futurefeed/faq/
It also should increase productivity on all ruminants in theory.
I like this bit -
"While analysing the gas samples using gas chromatography (GC) there was a repeating scenario of a 10-20% methane reduction, until suddenly one sample showed no methane! At first it was assumed that there was a problem with the GC so the test was repeated, and when the same result was replicated we had our moment of discovery. Those results have reproduced on every subsequent test and the red seaweed Asparagopsis is the star performer."
Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
#5Worth noting that methane is up to 84 times as damaging as CO2 in the atmosphere upon release. ( https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-other-important-greenhou... ) That means that (ironically I guess) this has the potential to be just about the biggest bang-for-buck weapon we have against climate change in the next decade. I don't envy the researchers having to explain it to their kids later though. "What'd you do in…
Not sure if you were just joking, but methane itself is odorless, which is why odorants are added to make natural gas easily detectable.
Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
#6Worth noting that methane is up to 84 times as damaging as CO2 in the atmosphere upon release. ( https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-other-important-greenhou... ) That means that (ironically I guess) this has the potential to be just about the biggest bang-for-buck weapon we have against climate change in the next decade. I don't envy the researchers having to explain it to their kids later though. "What'd you do in…
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Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
#7Worth noting that methane is up to 84 times as damaging as CO2 in the atmosphere upon release. ( https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-other-important-greenhou... ) That means that (ironically I guess) this has the potential to be just about the biggest bang-for-buck weapon we have against climate change in the next decade. I don't envy the researchers having to explain it to their kids later though. "What'd you do in…
Not sure if you were just joking, but methane itself is odorless, which is why odorants are added to make natural gas easily detectable.
I was just joking, but you've ruined it now with your facts.
Happy?
( this is also a joke so don't worry :-) )
Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
#8Discussed last year hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20711498
I was very skeptical whether this is scalable as up to two percent of the cows feed needs to be replaced with the sea weed and we simply do not produce sea weed at scale yet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20713552
The TL;DR was: in order to supply 1.5 billion cows with the seaweed we might need up to 291.000 metric tons of algae per day. ~ 106 Million metric tons per year.
In 2014 the world wide Aquatic Plants (which include ALL Macro-Algae) production was around 27 Million tons [0].
I would argue that the most effective way to reduce cattle emissions is to get rid of cattle. (Which is hard, I love beef and cheese).
Maybe “seaweed beef and dairy” will be a premium product but I doubt it will solve the problem on scale.
[0]: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5555e.pdf, page 24, table 7
Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
#9Discussed last year hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20711498 I was very skeptical whether this is scalable as up to two percent of the cows feed needs to be replaced with the sea weed and we simply do not produce sea weed at scale yet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20713552 The TL;DR was: in order to supply 1.5 billion cows with the seaweed we might need up to 291.000 metric tons of algae per…
I eat kangaroo, it tastes great and is all wild harvested.
Has anyone tried farming roo outside of Australia?
Often wondered about the viability.
Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
#10Discussed last year hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20711498 I was very skeptical whether this is scalable as up to two percent of the cows feed needs to be replaced with the sea weed and we simply do not produce sea weed at scale yet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20713552 The TL;DR was: in order to supply 1.5 billion cows with the seaweed we might need up to 291.000 metric tons of algae per…
> I would argue that the most effective way to reduce cattle emissions is to get rid of cattle.
I agree, but as a former vegan I'm aware that there's an approximately 0% chance of getting a majority of the world's population to give up beef and dairy.
The future has to be with lab-grown meat. I know the technology is still nascent, but if we ever get it right then it has the potential to be one of the most transformative inventions in human history. I'm not sure how we can save the climate without it.