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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%

#381

Post by m0zg »

hinkley wrote: post #379
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…

I get this a lot at work too, especially around the subject of optimization. If we get into a long enough conversation about it I'll tend to bring this up as one of my 'secret weapons' that shouldn't be a fucking secret. If you are making a budget, be it for CO2 emissions or network bandwidth or CPU seconds, it doesn't really matter what percent of your current spending each line item represents. It matters what perc…

True. Counterintuitively to some, 10 times 5% improvement is 63% improvement overall, not 50%, and 8% improvement on top of 50% improvement is 62% total, not 58%.

That said, 50% reduction is only doable with nuclear energy. Environmentalists who refuse to even discuss it (which, anecdotally, is most of them) aren't really environmentalists at all. They're the PR wing of the "renewables" lobby.

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

#382

Post by the8472 »

goodalgae wrote: post #371
the8472 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a paper on this topic this was tested and pure bromoform doesn't have the same effect, the authors speculate that is due to delayed release from the seaweed structures.

Mind dropping that link?

https://sci-hub.tw/10.1071/AN15576

Looks like I slightly misremembered. They write that they don't observe a decline of inhibition compared to a previous paper using pure bromoform but don't speculate on the reason. Maybe the speculation was in commentary on that paper.

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

#383

Post by SubiculumCode »

the8472 wrote: post #382
goodalgae wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind dropping that link?

https://sci-hub.tw/10.1071/AN15576 Looks like I slightly misremembered. They write that they don't observe a decline of inhibition compared to a previous paper using pure bromoform but don't speculate on the reason. Maybe the speculation was in commentary on that paper.

This suggests that the mechanism is not totally understood, which is easy to understand. It could require either tertiary agents in the seaweed/gut microbiome interactions..

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

#384

Post by asciimo »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #327
asciimo wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. We'll never harvest more than 10% of the energy we feed livestock. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level

There are plenty of things that animals can eat that are inedible to humans, or at the very least unpalatable. Tree fodder, rapeseed meal, sunflower husks, wetland reeds. Feeding animals nothing but corn and soybean is a travesty for a number of reasons but that doesn't mean meat production as a whole needs to stop.

Is one of those reasons that it is inhumane?

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

#386

Post by haisch »

deevolution wrote: post #80
goodalgae wrote: post #26

My 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…

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…

Since when should our diet be based on environmental concerns and not nutritional value? Feeding people an incomplete diet sounds like a lousy way to prevent climate catastrophe.

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

#387

Post by brohee »

masonic wrote: post #192
goodalgae wrote: post #26

My 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…

BTW, I find the wording on your landing page to be a bit awkward and the font used to be a difficult read as well. The '+' directive in the email address: do you use business Gmail, or does another email system use it similarly?

+ in email works the same way since sendmail

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

#388

Post by hinkley »

m0zg wrote: post #381
hinkley wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get this a lot at work too, especially around the subject of optimization. If we get into a long enough conversation about it I'll tend to bring this up as one of my 'secret weapons' that shouldn't be a fucking secret. If you are making a budget, be it for CO2 emissions or network bandwidth or CPU seconds, it doesn't really matter what percent of your current spending each line item represents. It matters what perc…

True. Counterintuitively to some, 10 times 5% improvement is 63% improvement overall, not 50%, and 8% improvement on top of 50% improvement is 62% total, not 58%. That said, 50% reduction is only doable with nuclear energy. Environmentalists who refuse to even discuss it (which, anecdotally, is most of them) aren't really environmentalists at all. They're the PR wing of the "renewables" lobby.

There's a lot of bad faith on both sides there.

The embodied carbon footprint of just the concrete for a conventional nuclear plant is truly breathtaking.

And there are designs that use bodies of water for cooling and cause thermal pollution problems. Clinton power plant, for example, made the lake unfit for recreation due to an amoeba that causes encephalitis. The locals tried for decades to block that getting built and it was a huge case of 'I told you so.'

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

#389

Post by darkerside »

tunesmith wrote: post #377
darkerside wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cows may account for a small amount of total emissions, but they are responsible for almost half the methane released on the planet. Methane is a potent but relatively shortlived GHG. So, removing all cows would be a sizable but short term fix.

Well, that's what I meant by CO2-equivalents. They figure methane into the math that way. Removing that methane would account for 5% of the CO2-equivalent problem we have. As potent as Methane is, it's dwarfed by the amount of CO2 we've added.

> sizable but short term fix

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

#390

Post by gridlockd »

shlant wrote: post #276
leipert wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the feasibility of this, deploying it on a large scale? I did some quick calculations on a napkin. Apparently there are between 1 billion and 1.5 billion cows [0][1]. Let’s just say 1.5 Billion. In New Zealand the beef (dry cow) vs dairy cow ratio is almost 1:1 [2], but I assume that countries like India have more dairy cows, so I just assumed that 60% percent of cows are dairy cows. Apparently dry cows consu…

it certainly seems like a farfetched bandaid for a very inefficient food source (no matter how you view it)

It's not all that inefficient for what it is. Just look at how expensive products like Beyond Meat are, and they don't even come that close in terms of taste and nutrition.
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