Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80% • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by fogihujy » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #32

cik wrote: post #28

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. That also doesn't mean that people are going to do it, or can. But at least it's one form of a step in the right direction. War doesn't have to be waged and won in a single battle. Every little step helps if it truly reduces emissions.

> 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…

> Eat local is class signaling, not environmentalism.

It's true, but it shouldn't be applied litterally either. It's perfectly reasonable to consume locally produced and cheaply available food and it's quite logical to encourage local production assuming it is financially viable and results in a reduction in total CO2 emissions.

I can imagine it could even result in increased meat consumption for a few select individuals living in areas where agriculture isn't viable.

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

#152

Post by belorn » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #127

jazzabeanie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia a significant amount (can't remember the specifics) of cattle is raised on land that is unsuitable for crop production. My own experience confirms this. I've seen many cattle farms around Queensland - some with low stocking density and no deforestation, others very poorly managed with no trees at all or full of invasive species. It's not as simple as eating meat = bad, but that's the message most people…

> In Australia a significant amount (can't remember the specifics) of cattle is raised on land that is unsuitable for crop production. I'm not sure how that makes anything better. It will still require more carbon emissions than growing elsewhere. In fact raising cattle in a spot like you describe still well require growing the feed elsewhere. Wouldn't it be much better to just eat the soup or other crop directly, sa…

Factory farms, or intensive animal farming as is the technical name, have animals living on a small space that primarily/only eat crops that has been grown elsewhere. In many cases that is the same crops that humans also eat such as soy.

Cattle raised on land that is unsuitable for crop production eat primarily from the land they graze on. Depending on where in the world it is there might be periods like winter where extra "support food" is added, which amount and type depend on weather and circumstance. Support food is usually silage made from hay, grown on land which is deemed too inefficient for other crops. Hay can also be grown on land needing crop rotations, with or without added fertilizers.

Wildlife refuges are sometimes where I live combined with grazing cattle as a cost (and environment) saving method to keep overgrowth down for which otherwise heavy machinery would be needed. It has also been experimented to use sheep for areas with over land power lines, as those otherwise need regular clearing from fossil gulping heavy machinery.

The distinction between factory farming and everything else is sadly lost in most discussions around meat, and when sold it is not marked in the store to distinguish between the two. Most processed food is also said to contain factory farmed meat. Factory farmed meat is basically always a negative for the environment and the animals, but outside of that we got the whole spectrum.

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

#153

Post by VBprogrammer » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

jurip wrote: post #68

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As a more realistic example, I think you can buy locally grown tomatoes in Finland all year round these days, or if not at least pretty close to it. A large portion of them are grown in Närpes, where day length dips below 5 hours in December. Keeping those greenhouses lit and warm is in no way ecological.

Almost all power plants waste huge amounts of low grade waste heat (typically ~90C water), fossil fuel plants also give off considerable amounts of CO2 which can be used to enrich the atmosphere of a greenhouse. It's a shame there isn't more joined up thinking when these things are planned.

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

#154

Post by thinkcontext » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

scns wrote: post #18

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…

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

Only a small amount of fertilizer usage in the US is waste based. In 2015 13M tons of nitrogen based synthetic fertilizer was used, on top of that 4M tons each of phosphate and potash fertilizer. For waste based fertilizer compost, dried manure and sewage total 600K tons. That doesn't even take into account that the raw weights aren't directly comparable.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/fertilizer-use-and-pr...

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

#155

Post by pvaldes » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

leipert wrote: post #8

Discussed 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…

> In 2014 the world wide Aquatic Plants (which include ALL Macro-Algae) production was around 27 Million tons.

I can add something about that.

Most algae production is Chinese and brown macroalgae.

Brown and red algae are really different creatures. It seems that brown are not even seen as plants currently and have moved to kingdom protista (something that could explain their strange flagellated spores), whereas reds are still plants, I think.

They are so far away phylogenetically, that is not reasonable to be interchangeable just because they are both "algae". Expecting a Phaeophycea having the same effect in cows as a Rhodophyta, would be like expecting Geraniums have the same chemical properties as tuberculosis.

We most probably would have: either none effect Y or a different effect X, still unknown

Second thing: Lets assume for a moment that the effect would be the same. Those 27 million tons do not exist. Of those 27 tons, around half are brown macroalgae, but -very important- this is probably fresh weight. Macroalgae are not sold fresh, they must be dried before to reach the market. Therefore we would't have a production of 15 million tons of brown algae. What we really would have is 4 million tons of dried brown algae to feed 1.5 billion of cows, that is a worse situation

Therefore we would need to start growing algae as crazy somewhere. We have three options.

1) At the sea

We would need to make room in extensive coastal areas, (some of those protected areas with a high biodiversity) to grow Asparagopsis.

Distroying valuable coastal areas that support coastal cities, to grow just sheeps would be increasing the risk and putting all of our eggs in the same basket economically. If the wool market sinks and the fisheries were turned into auxiliar activities around wool's industry, there are not other activities that could act as a buffer and save the day. Not to mention than extensive farmers employ much less workers than fisheries.

2) In tanks

As the ocean is a place with a million of unpredictable variables and trophic chains we probably would prefer to do it in laboratory. So we need to build many and learn how to do it. That is more easier to say than to do, because Asparagopsis is just one of two forms in a complex life cycle (the other was called Falkenbergia). So we need to learn how to grow two algae in one.

Can be done? Yes, but is several levels much more complicated that just trowing some seeds in a field and see fodder grow.

3) In other countries

We could also save ourselves all the headaches and left it to experts (i.e. import it). A few red algae are cultured in several Asian countries, specially Japan but they are seen as culinary delicacies and they control the amount of algae put in the market to keep prices high. So using it to make wool maybe would be like selling 100 dollar bills at 15 cents each. Not a really economically viable activity.

Is unclear how including cows in aquaculture would disturb the market or the geopolitics. I would expect an increase in the actual Chinese hunger of buying or silently grabbing as many sea bottom areas as they can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So...

All of that, without mention the carcinogen aspect, that is also very troubling.

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

#156

Post by tankenmate » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

pvaldes wrote: post #79

pvaldes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. I see that is smaller than the other races, is more vulnerable to predators, have health issues if moved to pastures, and produces less wool (being smaller) and meat with a high iodine content. This supports my former idea that there are serious obstacles to scale this solution to continental areas with the purpose of feeding people. > I'm sure they have tested it Would be interesting to see their r…

The fact that there is a displaced goal here, is not a good signal. When I hear about methane problem caused by cattle I see always people blaming cows. I'm just wondering... If cows are the problem, why they are doing research in sheep? Is a different animal, with a different gut arrangement, producing a totally different dry faeces that are much less troublesome as cow faeces are. I'm not expert in methane releasin…

North Ronaldsay sheep aren't an experiment, they've been kept that way since sometime between the 9th and 15th century.

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

#157

Post by dr_zoidberg » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

emmelaich wrote: post #37

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…

Cow burps produce more methane than farts. Not sure whether it changes your argument though.

As I understand, the seaweed reduces methane both from burps and farts. Classy sentence to write, for sure.

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

#158

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #120

dannyw wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been cooking with and eating plant based meat every once in a while for a year now. I don’t even think about it. It’s meat to me now.

My recent observations of HN is that many here take their own experience, and extrapolate that they are common and therefore anybody else could've also done it, and would be willing to. But there's empirical evidence that not many people want to stop eating meat. Look at how few vegetarians there are, compared to non-vegetarians. Do you really think those people don't know it's possible to live healthily as vegetaria…

>Look at how few vegetarians there are, compared to non-vegetarians

So how do you explain that many people become vegetarians even though they checked all the boxes of "knowing it is possible but yet not willing to change"?

I was in that category until I was not. Why?

I knew it was possible (like almost everyone) and I didn't want to stop eating meat. But it isn't just an information, it's a belief (how the knowledge affects you, exactly).

What makes people believe they can't or don't want is mostly a product of culture/habits. It's really easy to change that, especially as it's become a hot topic. Not everyone changes at once, but it's quite viral (when people stop eating meat around you, the possibility of change doesn't seem abstract anymore). Idem when restaurant start offering good options in their menus (not a mere salad).

The issue is not of "knowing" but of "realizing". You can't distinguish people who are in one camp or the other as if those who change their eating habits become whole different persons, all the sudden.

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

#159

Post by cbernini » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

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.…

You're talking about manure usage here, not meat consumption. You don't need cattle for regenerative agriculture.

Compost can do just fine in this case. Also if you want to boost nitrogen on the soil you can do by using FAA (a KNF entry) based on fish, instead. Anyways, the second link you sent says that they have controlled grazing to prevent the cattle from destroying new growth. As the text says: plants can do it all.

Plantation can't. And never will.

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

#160

Post by 3np » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #54

wodenokoto wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whole milk: 24% That is a crazy high efficiency, when you think about it. A quarter of all food this animal receives through its entire life ends up as milk. The rest is used for growing cells, keeping it alive and warm, moving around. Back of the napkin says that I've eaten my bodyweight in food in less than 2 months.

Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for the green revolution and understood the misguidance of efficiency as a strategy better than anyone. As a tactic it works under the strategy of managing population, as he said in his acceptance speech: > "The green revolution has won a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can…

It's worth noting that continued population growth is an inherent assumption in today's economic climate and really for the past century or two. Just look at all the alarmist headlines around Japan's stagnating population.

While a huge environmental win and globally necessary, nations are incentivized to strive for continuing population growth as wellfare, pension systems and arguably the entire economy has been relying on a growing population for "sustainability".