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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%

#111

Post by zaroth »

m0zg wrote: post #77
mateodelnorte wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional thing to consider is that not all greenhouse gases are created equal. You can find any number of articles to cite as source that methane is 20 to 30 times worse for the atmosphere in causing warming than carbon dioxide. https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2014/03/26/a-more-poten...

I've run the numbers and it looks like all cattle on earth emit something like 150MT of methane per year. Multiplied by 20 (to get CO2 equivalent), that's 3GT. That's about 8% of the yearly total CO2 emissions (37GT). Certainly not negligible, but not earth shattering either. For comparison, per-capita CO2 emissions in the US are 16.5 metric tons. Per cow methane emissions are about 100kg per year or 2-3 tons in CO2…

In fact, that is a truly massive amount of emissions for something which could be completely eliminated through a change to 2% of the cows diet.

This is about as big of a win, with about the highest ROI, you could possibly hope for.

If ever there were a CO2 cap and trade, this seaweed, if it works as claimed, would be tremendously profitable.

And you think transporting the seaweed is a problem? The total CO2 saved by Tesla vehicles so far is 3.5 million tons. Eliminating cows emissions would be equivalent to 800x that... How do you think shipping cars around the world compares to shipping seaweed from the coast?

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

#112

Post by taneq »

petersellers wrote: post #88
chrisco255 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There is no evidence of a fresh water shortage. The UN disagrees. [1] > We had the wettest year in 125 years in the U.S. this year. Surely you're not using a one time event to argue against the scientific consensus of climate change? > Beef is one of the healthiest foods on the planet, and we evolved to eat meat, and have been eating it for 2.5 million years. What does this have to do with the water consumption use…

> Surely you're not using a one time event to argue against the scientific consensus of climate change?

"But it's cold in my office, global warming debunked!"

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

#113

Post by glenvdb »

chrisco255 wrote: post #101
petersellers wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no evidence of a fresh water shortage. The UN disagrees. [1] > We had the wettest year in 125 years in the U.S. this year. Surely you're not using a one time event to argue against the scientific consensus of climate change? > Beef is one of the healthiest foods on the planet, and we evolved to eat meat, and have been eating it for 2.5 million years. What does this have to do with the water consumption use…

Surely you're not arguing that the amount of water on the planet has decreased? Or that global annual rainfall has reduced? EPA shows that annual precipitation has consistently increased over the past century, so the water scare is a bad play: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...

The overall amount of water on the planet and the annual rainfall isn't the same thing as water availability.

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

#114

Post by mtgx »

chrisco255 wrote: post #101
petersellers wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no evidence of a fresh water shortage. The UN disagrees. [1] > We had the wettest year in 125 years in the U.S. this year. Surely you're not using a one time event to argue against the scientific consensus of climate change? > Beef is one of the healthiest foods on the planet, and we evolved to eat meat, and have been eating it for 2.5 million years. What does this have to do with the water consumption use…

Surely you're not arguing that the amount of water on the planet has decreased? Or that global annual rainfall has reduced? EPA shows that annual precipitation has consistently increased over the past century, so the water scare is a bad play: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...

Climate change effects were always primarily about local disruptions: i.e. stuff like certain countries agriculture being hit hard by dry seasons while others would see tons of rain and floods when they didn't before. You don't think there is significant regional impact if say the Nile dries up but most of that water then shows up say in Greece?

It almost doesn't matter that "on balance" the water quantity is the same globally. Think of it through this more extreme analogy - what if the US became the new ice covered Greenland while Siberia became a tropical jungle?

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

#115

Post by m0zg »

esotericn wrote: post #82
m0zg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've run the numbers and it looks like all cattle on earth emit something like 150MT of methane per year. Multiplied by 20 (to get CO2 equivalent), that's 3GT. That's about 8% of the yearly total CO2 emissions (37GT). Certainly not negligible, but not earth shattering either. For comparison, per-capita CO2 emissions in the US are 16.5 metric tons. Per cow methane emissions are about 100kg per year or 2-3 tons in CO2…

8% for the sake of what amounts to a flavour in your mouth is pretty earth shattering. Consider: would you spend 8% of your entire financial budget on beef? On an income of $30K, say, you'd spend $2400 on beef, ignoring all other food and other expenses? I'd even flip it around - take a random person off the street, in the UK, say, and tell them you'll give them 2 grand a year to stop eating beef. How many people do…

>> you'll give them 2 grand a year to stop eating beef

I think the vast majority of people would turn down your offer. There's too little enjoyment in life as it is. Life without steaks and beer is not worth living for most people.

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

#116

Post by reitzensteinm »

m0zg wrote: post #77
mateodelnorte wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional thing to consider is that not all greenhouse gases are created equal. You can find any number of articles to cite as source that methane is 20 to 30 times worse for the atmosphere in causing warming than carbon dioxide. https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2014/03/26/a-more-poten...

I've run the numbers and it looks like all cattle on earth emit something like 150MT of methane per year. Multiplied by 20 (to get CO2 equivalent), that's 3GT. That's about 8% of the yearly total CO2 emissions (37GT). Certainly not negligible, but not earth shattering either. For comparison, per-capita CO2 emissions in the US are 16.5 metric tons. Per cow methane emissions are about 100kg per year or 2-3 tons in CO2…

There's not a direct multiple to get the CO2 equivalent. Methane is 100 times worse, but is slowly removed from the atmosphere by natural processes.

The 20 year multiple is commonly stated as 75, which is the average value of the curve that starts out at 100 and decays away with time. So it's 30% of our impact on that timeline.

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

#117

Post by semi-extrinsic »

fooker wrote: post #37
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #18

Earlier 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.

You can not grow enough fruits, vegetables and nuts to feed the human population without severe deforestation. Also, agriculture uses up pretty much most of the obtainable drinkable water.

I'm also sceptical that the recently proposed diets of fruits, vegetables and nuts actually work out. AFAICT it's an outstanding problem in nutrition science concerning how many of the calories in nuts that humans are able to digest. And yet it seems like the proposed diets just assume "all calories are equal". I've seen reports from journalists who have tried following those diets saying they were constantly hungry.

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

#118

Post by jaakl »

m0zg wrote: post #77
mateodelnorte wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional thing to consider is that not all greenhouse gases are created equal. You can find any number of articles to cite as source that methane is 20 to 30 times worse for the atmosphere in causing warming than carbon dioxide. https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2014/03/26/a-more-poten...

I've run the numbers and it looks like all cattle on earth emit something like 150MT of methane per year. Multiplied by 20 (to get CO2 equivalent), that's 3GT. That's about 8% of the yearly total CO2 emissions (37GT). Certainly not negligible, but not earth shattering either. For comparison, per-capita CO2 emissions in the US are 16.5 metric tons. Per cow methane emissions are about 100kg per year or 2-3 tons in CO2…

Any method in scale of over 1% impact is earth shattering, as we need just 100 such things to save the world. Even 0.1% “market share” target would be awesome. It is a complex problem and it is resolvable by hudreds, maybe thousands small remedies, not one big bang.

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

#119

Post by vtrips »

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…

I would rather we focus on cutting down the rest of the 90% of emissions than the natural emissions which have been occurring since before the industrial revolution messed it up.

There is a fine balance in nature and maybe cows are the wrong place to experiment.

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

#120

Post by dclowd9901 »

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…

Did that include the carbon used to grow their feed, harvest their water and maintain their lots, as well as all the carbon used by the people to service them?
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