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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%

#81

Post by twic »

pvaldes wrote: post #44

I still think that there is a simple explanation for the 'reduction in methane' effect, and that the plan has some severe loopholes Raising cattle in a regular diet of seaweed for its entire life and expecting it to grow correctly is still uncharted territory. Are we pushing cow metabolism to the brink of famine? Wild seaweeds are harvested and sold for several purposes: 1) To make agar-agar. A substance that is used…

> I still think that there is a simple explanation for the 'reduction in methane' effect

Yes - your "still" suggests to me you think that it is a mystery (apologies if i misunderstand), whereas i believe it is reasonably well understood - it's bromoform, aka tribromomethane, which inhibits methanogenesis in bacteria [0].

So it is indeed a chemical weapon.

> Raising cattle in a regular diet of seaweed for its entire life and expecting it to grow correctly is still uncharted territory. Are we pushing cow metabolism to the brink of famine?

Well, we'll find out! There is an argument, with in vitro evidence, that stopping methanogenesis will increase animal nutrition, because the carbon that would have been lost as methane is available to make vital fatty acids instead [1]. There are studies on real animals which look good [2]. But it's only by trying it at scale that we'll really know.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299274346_Identific...

[1] https://animalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/...

[2] https://research.csiro.au/futurefeed/research-and-developmen...

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#82

Post by jussij »

gerdesj wrote: post #20
headmelted wrote: post #3

Worth 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…

"this has the potential to be just about the biggest bang-for-buck weapon we have against climate change in the next decade." Now we only need to get cars 'n' lorries etc, ships and aeroplanes to eat the stuff and it's job done. Obviously, coal and gas fired power stations are already changing their diet and farting and belching less methane already. The Great Barrier Reef is already de-bleaching and the Greenland ic…

> The Great Barrier Reef is already de-bleaching

How I wish this was the true picture, but unfortunately science paints a picture that is much worse:

Apr 7, 2020

'The scale of bleaching is enormous during global bleaching events,' according to Professor Hughes, 'the situation brings me to despair.'

The first recorded mass bleaching along the Reef struck in 1998, at the time the hottest year on record. Then again in 2002, 2016 and 2017, as more temperature records were broken.

The latest follows February’s unusually hot summer–resulting in the highest ever sea surface temperatures recorded on the Reef since controls began in 1900.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tamarathiessen/2020/04/07/great...

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#83

Post by tlarkworthy »

seanwilson wrote: post #11

How much could this reduce the total environmental food print of cattle? I.e. including all the energy used to grow the crops they eat, the deforestation to make room for the crops + cattle, the waste the cows produce. Animal farming creates vast damage because of how inefficient it is and seaweed won't address how much feed cows need or that the world is eating more and more meat as countries get richer: > The energ…

Massive I believe.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150401084157.h...

Cattle responsible for 15 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions that humans cause."

It's the methane, chickens are much less damaging. The outsided damage cattle does is because if the biochemistry in the stomache, which this feed addresses (Lamb is terrible too, but less popular)

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#86

Post by eyko »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #36
barry-cotter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day this is signalling. We all know that the best thing we can do is eat a local, veg-friendly (vegetarian/vegan) diet. Local doesn’t belong in there. As a reductio ad absurdum would it be better to eat a diet of nothing but imported NZ lamb or to grow all food locally at McMurdo Base in Antarctica? Grass is next to free. Ocean shipping is the most efficient means of transport for bulk freight the…

"What about Antarctica" is the most straw man argument possible when talking about food sourcing.

Don't forget places like Chad and Niger. Antartica is, as the parent post said, a reductio ad absurdum, but I often pay attention to how global warming (or even just bad years and seasons) affects agriculture and animal husbandry in places like Chad and Niger because it's a forewarning of what might happen to the north of Nigeria (the north is our breadbasket). We also import grain from places that are now having bad season after bad season and it does affect.

If, in the near future, food transportation relies on mostly clean or renewable energy, then it shouldn't be unsustainable to grow and import our pearl millet from a different country or even continent. It would also promote trade, which is sometimes desperately needed.

As long as the methods of production and transportation are sustainable and environmentally friendly, what would the issue be?

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#87

Post by easytiger »

czottmann wrote: post #80
chii wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can perfectly live on eating meat once or twice a week but it wouldn't produce as much pleasure as eating meat every day. I dont think depending on people to be altruistic (and give up what pleasure they can get) is a good way forward.

That's a highly subjective statement. I eat well, and enjoy my meals, and I only eat animals about once per week, if any. I'm not missing anything. (I'm not a full-on vegetarian, and certainly not vegan.) _"Meat is delicious"_ is a mindset. _"It's not a full meal unless there's meat"_ is an arguably marketing-induced mindset.

> _"Meat is delicious"_ is a mindset. _"It's not a full meal unless there's meat"_ is an arguably marketing-induced mindset

If by marketing you mean centuries of behaviour, then ok. Certainly in my region of the world the basic diet has always been meat focused.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#88

Post by easytiger »

durovo wrote: post #78
blunte wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor correction: if we bastards stop eating them, we can ...

If we start eating the bastards we can

What a lovely thread of childish myopic hate and stupidity.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#89

Post by bluGill »

cesnja wrote: post #19
scns wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without excrement from animals you need synthetic fertilizer, whose production causes massive production causes massive environmental damage eg emissions and algae bloom.

There's also the "classic" option, discovered some 200 years before synthetic fertilizers - crop rotation that includes some form of legumes. IMO with the current state of agriculture and food production we went into a local maximum that is very unsustainable and bad for the environment.

That doesn't provide the same value as manure. Don't get me wrong, crop rotation is important because it provides different things.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#90

Post by [deleted] »

pkphilip wrote: post #71
seanwilson wrote: post #11

How much could this reduce the total environmental food print of cattle? I.e. including all the energy used to grow the crops they eat, the deforestation to make room for the crops + cattle, the waste the cows produce. Animal farming creates vast damage because of how inefficient it is and seaweed won't address how much feed cows need or that the world is eating more and more meat as countries get richer: > The energ…

For sustainable farming, livestock plays a very crucial role. This is particularly true for organic and natural farming. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/agriculture/organic-live... So looking at a single metric (methane emissions) doesn't do this topic justice. Also, live stock grazing (if done properly) can also be a method of regreening environments. https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/though-forests-burn-agrofo.…

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