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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%

#91

Post by littlestymaar »

kibibu wrote: post #36
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.

Cows are much better at extracting nutrients from, say, grass than humans are. In places where nuts, vegetables, fruits aren't available, meat may be a more environmentally friendly choice.

> Cows are much better at extracting nutrients from, say, grass than humans are.

That's because we human cannot digest grass due to the lack of the proper mictobiote, but most cows in the modern world aren't fed with grass anymore but instead with soy, corn or other kind of high-nutrients food (for which we human are totally equiped to eat).

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

#92

Post by jimmaswell »

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…

I'd be spending about $15/day on beef at that rate on my salary, which isn't very far off from my fast food habits.

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

#93

Post by jlebar »

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…

Have a look at the numbers e.g. on drowdown.org to put the 8% in perspective.

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

#94

Post by esotericn »

jimmaswell wrote: post #92
esotericn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd be spending about $15/day on beef at that rate on my salary, which isn't very far off from my fast food habits.

I'm a bit confused by this - are you saying that it'd end up being 100% of what you eat, or that it's actually a reasonable estimate of your beef consumption?

(as an aside - $15 on fast food a day! for your sake I hope it's relatively healthy stuff!)

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

#95

Post by bacon_waffle »

mateodelnorte wrote: post #55
m0zg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like just growing seaweed won't be enough though. You'd have to grow it _in close proximity to the cows_, otherwise there are other greenhouse gases that will be emitted before the cows can eat it. It's also unclear to me what this means in terms of water consumption, and therefore sustainability. I'd be curious to hear how (if at all) these issues could be addressed.

We aim to grow close to consumption.

From your comment mentioning this seaweed not being domesticated, I'm wondering what the development process looks like.

Are you starting by trying to grow undomesticated seaweed in a completely artificial setting, is the first step to domesticate the seaweed in the sea, something else?

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

#96

Post by chrisco255 »

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…

Methane isn't stable in the atmosphere. It eventually converts to CO2 and H2O (within 10 years of emission). It's also an extremely miniscule portion of the Earth's atmosphere, at 1.7 parts per million. It is a negligible factor in global warming.

EDIT: Methane is .00017% of the Earth's atmosphere. It cannot be a major factor in retaining heat in the Earth's atmosphere, even though it may be 20 times more effective than wator vapor at retaining heat, it exists in such low concentrations that it can't have a significant effect. To be clear, wator vapor is up to 4% of the atmosphere at any time, so it exists in concentrations 20,000 times greater than Methane.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/5270/atmospheric-me...

EDIT 2: it doesn't matter how good methane is at retaining heat if it exists in the parts per billion range...it's negligible. It would be equivalent to eating a single additional calorie a day in your 2000 calorie diet. It would not cause you to gain weight. Equivalently, if you exercise 1.8 more seconds a day than you usually do, you're not going to gain more muscle or burn more fat.

EDIT 3: https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/atm_meth/ice_core_meth... ice cores showing variable methane rates over the last 800K years, a time in which we've swing in and out of ice ages several times over.

Also, humans killed off megafauna much larger than cows and taking up much more biomass towards the end of the Paleolithic era, in a time when the climate was rapidly warming. Despite plunging populations of megafauna and their supposedly toxic digestive systems, the climate continued to warm by 8 degrees around 12000 years BP, well before we discovered fossil fuels. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.201...

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

#97

Post by legohead »

baroffoos wrote: post #54
legohead wrote: post #28

but can we address the water consumption?

If it can be grown in salt water like the name "seaweed" suggests then there is no issue with water consumption.

I was referring to the water consumption needed to grow meat

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

#98

Post by wwweston »

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…

> early indications in research of some amazing additional benefits – improved milk production, increased immunity, improved food conversion ratio

What are the chances the gains here might be on the order where we could stop dosing cattle with antibiotics?

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

#99

Post by jimmaswell »

esotericn wrote: post #94
jimmaswell wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be spending about $15/day on beef at that rate on my salary, which isn't very far off from my fast food habits.

I'm a bit confused by this - are you saying that it'd end up being 100% of what you eat, or that it's actually a reasonable estimate of your beef consumption? (as an aside - $15 on fast food a day! for your sake I hope it's relatively healthy stuff!)

I haven't been to the grocery store much lately, and a Wendy's and McDonald's are within bicycling distance. I'll go to them once or twice a day often nowadays. When I first moved out, eating out so much would have felt like an intolerable budget failure, but I've found myself caring less and less over time.

I try to stick to just the burgers, not soda or fries often. The jalapeno bacon fries at Wendy's have been an exception though.

I feel like it's not really that unhealthy considering fat's actually not bad for you and dietary cholesterol doesn't become blood cholesterol, which was surprisingly still good for me despite this diet last it was tested. Results vary depending on the genetic lottery.

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

#100

Post by cc439 »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #18
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…

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.

It's easier to consume those things... until winter arrives. Unless you support the massively carbon intensive process of shipping ~80% of each hemisphere's food supply to the other during winter, this isn't viable. Even if that is acceptable, it isn't sustainable.
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