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Methane-Eating Bacteria Could Combat Global Warming
realwx writes "New Zealand scientists have found a bacterium, named 'Methylokorus infernorum,' that eats a key global warming chemical. Found in a hot spring, the bug lives off of methane emissions from geothermically active areas. A scientist quoted in the article stated that a cubic meter of liquid containing the bacterium would consume about 11kg of methane each year. 'But Dr Stott cautioned that such an application was probably some years into the future. He said it was unlikely the micro-organism, which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C, could ever be added to sheep or cows' food to stop the animals releasing methane.'"
Stop building fucking McMansions in the middle of nowhere so that people have to drive 20 miles to wal-mart if they want milk... well that would combat global warming too!
Give it up fags, Earth's average temperature has virtually plateaued over the last 10 years; there isn't going to be some bull cock disaster in our world. Dig your heads out of your asses already.
my wife would appreciate some methane reducing lifeforms to combat my post-Thanksgiving gas venting. I've literally been a musical instrument all day long.
Can it be fed to cows as well?
The only side effect is it probably eats natural gas as well, so the oil companies get to make more money.
From TFS: "He said it was unlikely the micro-organism, which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C, could ever be added to sheep or cows' food to stop the animals releasing methane."
No, that's what this is for!
Wouldn't it be better to just collect the methane and burn it to displace coal/oil? Sure, you still get CO2 , but methane has the highest energy yield per CO2 yield of all the hydrocarbons, and it is orders of magnitude cleaner than Coal.
Plant more fucking trees. Encourage rooftop gardens. Increase Earth's surface albedo with reflective roofs. The problem's already been solved and these scientists are just ignoring reliable solutions because they want delicious patent money.
I use to believe in man made Global Warming, however, after looking at how biased the IPCC report was I don't anymore. There are many scientists, which are included in the report and requested to be removed when they saw how flawed it was. The IPCC said no because "they contributed." Here is a good video you all should watch.
We'd be nobodies. Women won't want to fuck us. Rivals won't shrink away in terror and awe.
No, we need all the trophies we can get.
Won't somebody think of the children we'll have in the future after impressing hot women with our obvious prowess? Why won't you think of those children?
If this substance found its way into the food supply, it could be the end of ancient tradition of fart-lighting. The cultural loss would be incalculable.
Let's take a roll of duct-tape, and some balloons, and tape balloons to the cows asses. Then we can burn the methane into the less harmful co2 and collect energy while doing it. Of course there is always the problem of spontaneous cow combustion...
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
...but it's still going to be producing some sort of waste. The article didn't mention at all what the bacteria produced as a byproduct of it's methane consumption. It doesn't do us a whole of good if it pops out radioactive sludge now does it. I don't think it should be written off as "vaporware" but this is obviously still very much in it's infancy. The article was very sparse on specifics other than putting out the sensational headline about curing global warming. Check back in a few years.
I got a catholic block.
what about humans?
We fart too.
"Which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C"
So, im not Biologist, but wouldn't the inside of a cows stomach have lots of acid? And the internal body temperature of a cow is probably similar to a humans. So we have the acid, and we are off by about 20 degrees. I'm sure some geneticist somewhere can figure out how to adapt it to these conditions.
Another idea may be to put these bacteria into the pools where the manurer is left to decompose?
-EL
Beef production is horribly wasteful, and produces lots of methane. Cutting way back on beef consumption would be a Good Thing (tm).
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
i though that was common sense in the scientific class that the early earth atmosphere composed essentially by metane and other greenhouse-effect gases was modified by these bugs who fixated the gases from the air. maybe one day when the ocean water become 60C these bugs could come to the surface and to the trick again.
How many liters would have to be put into Capitol Hill each year to offset the methane there.... the mind boggles!
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
In other news, scientists also discover a way of combatting another major greenhouse gas - carbon dioxide. This newly discovered group of organisms, tentatively called "plants", not only absorbs the carbon dioxide gas, but also produces oxygen AND SOME can be quite tasty in a stir-fry. Further research is continuing, with the hopes these so-called "plants" becoming commercially viable by 2010.
So, 1 cubic meter will take care of 11 kg. How much to take care of our 330 teragram annual emission? A couple dozen cubic kilometers?
Because other experiments in the past to release some kind of life form to combat something we deem as inconvenient has worked soooooo well: * introducing rabbits in Australia * introducing foxes to eat said rabbits * crossing European and African honey bees to get the best of both worlds... * snakeheads in Eastern USA * american frogs in europe And about another 1000 examples of introducing animals outside their natural habitat have all worked out so well. So, yeah, let's release those bugs!
Anyone ever get the feeling that we are going to really muck things up by trying to "fix" things? We introduce new species of animal or bacteria to an environment to control naturally occurring beings, then these predators completely take over and become a problem in and of themselves. So and on so forth.
I have to believe sometimes that we as humans are simply not smart enough, or perhaps do not see enough of the big picture, to understand the intricacies of the world or the universe to implement such grand scale processes.
Our population is on the rise. There are no signs of it slowing down in the foreseeable future.
As it rises, our need for food also rises. If we just stop producing enough food, you get crime, riots, wars, and so on. Most people would prefer to avoid that. So, we ramp up our food production (as well as production of everything else we need, housing, clothing, etc) and in so doing produce waste. This is not going to change.
So, instead we look for means of reprocessing our waste so as to maximize the sustainability of our systems. This technology is just another link in that chain.
If you want to be part of the solution, I would suggest you lay off the utterly fruitless moralistic scolding and instead focus on using or otherwise supporting the development of technological advances such as these.
Warming. A better solution would be to force everyone to become Vegans and eliminate meat eating. Not only will that eliminate CO2 and methane, but it will be a whole lot better for the animals. After meat eating is banned go over to solar and wind for our energy needs. Those are the only two ways to combat global warming.
"Found in a hot spring, the bug lives off of methane emissions from geothermically active areas."
Coming to a geek basement near you.
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Vegetarianism requires irrigation that uses up precious water resources. Cuts down forests to make crop land. And drains pesticides and nirates into our rivers. When done poorly, as in many places it leads to salted or barren lands. Huge amounts of fossil fuels are consumes planting, harvesting and manufacturing fertilizer. Even the employees have to drive to work.
Then unless you want to live just on what your area can grow, you have to truck all those crops 2000 miles per bite, lentil breath.
Take the midwest which used to support 200 million buffalo on natural unirrigated grasses. That was all torn up to produce crops.
Cattle can graze on unirrigated badlands where crop lands are impractical. No pesticides. Take away cows and many people would starve. Rather than trucking low energy food thousands of miles, cows can collected centrally then just the high energy tasty bits actually transported.
Now as for methane. We now have 100 million cows in the US and each cow is producing less methane than the buffalo. Moreover grain fed beef produces 1/3 of grass fed. And lets not forget all the other gazers like deer that are less plenitful than the old days. So the amount of methane being produced now from cow farts is a small fraction of the pre-whiteman era.
Moreover all those 100 million cows produce less methane every year than a gigwatt coal firesplant. And their building 1 a week in china right now. By 2040 that may rise to 3 a day if energy demands continue at present rates.
Any people worry about cows??
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Methylokorus infernorum. What consumes it when it gets out of control. I am being corny and soy-ey. (sorry)
Still, the globe on which we currently reside is going through changes. I am sure we play a part, but let us not get an ego. This planet has known this for some time longer than us.
Reducing our negative impacts and increasing our positive cannot be wrong by definition in my book. We can only do positive together.
We win together or suffer without.
So what are we going to do? Throw a bunch of acid everywhere and hope it saves the world?
...and it pisses gasoline, right?
rj
People who raise unproductive organic foods do two very bad things. First they consume more water/land for less food and second they drive up prices and displace products (and exports) from more productive farming methods, causing food to become less affordable and less available at home and around the world.
People who buy organic and pay more are marie anttoinette saying let them eat soy to the rest of the world.
IN much of the world farming takes much more capital than cattle raising to acquire land, water, machinery, and improvement. Then they cant' eat anything till the crops come in--if they do.
Guess I will have to heat my home with coal now... Stupid global warming fan boys...
It is pointless to try to "change the climate". The earth will do what it's always done, and that is to adapt.
Humans are also pretty good at adapting, unless the planet undergoes dramatic climate change like it did in that scary movie.
It's the ironic world we live in where we have to stop global warming at all costs even by disrupting the natural order of things.
According to wikipedia, methane takes up 0.0001745% of the Earth's atmosphere. It certainly seems like there are more productive lines of research to pursue.
excellent satire.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Archaea are extremophiles that can turn methane into oil to power our SUVs directly. Incorporate archaea into genetically altered cows to increase their body temperature to a balmy 70 degrees Celsius or so, and cows could be made to pee gasoline, instead of farting methane.
Nevermind the tiger, put a genetically enhanced cow in your tank.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
In other news, $C0 today decided to sue itself, because it discovered that $C0 has been using $C0 source code. "It's a recursive lawsuit," said a spokesperson for the company. "We saw those Coke billboards that said they should sue themselves, and decided we should do the same."
Neil Stephenson's Zodiac.
This flies in the face of science.
More efficent and easier to mix monensin into cattle feed, as has been done since the early '60s. An antibiotic sold under the tradename "rumensin", it is available as a component of supplemental vitamin/mineral feed mix; available by the bag or by the truckload at your local farm supply outlet. In a cow's stomach, it blocks the digestive microbes from breaking down corn sugar molecules into molecules of acetic acid, cardon dioxide and methane, instead keeping it all as one bigger acid molecule so the body can use all the carbon to bulk up. Otherwise, the gaseous CO2 and CH4 released would just be farted away and wasted. Young cattle can gain more weight with less forage, less greenhouse gases emitted, and as a bonus the antibiotic protects the animal against a few diseases.
... in the parallel dimension? He saw beans, lots of beans, lots of beans, lots of beans, ...
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
For a moment I thought that said man-eating bacteria combats global warming. Told you that the root cause of global warming is mankind. You eliminate that and we're all set.
Don't worry. No one will hug you.
My guess would be the bugs are oxidizing methane to CO2 and water as an energy source. Thus they would be producing CO2. Of course what type of info would you expect in the Daily Telegraph.
This reminds me of "Ill Wind". With Methane in mind, the title might make you chuckle. But in the book, the bacteria eat petroleum and get out of hand quite dramatically. So before we do something like this, the possible consequences should be considered rather carefully.
To eat these annoying vegans!
Given that quite a large percentage of these animals are reared for eating, maybe we should just come up with a way to retain and spread the methane in their body. You'd end up with flash-roast steaks - just hold a match to them and blamm - ready.
:-).
You would have to breed rare, medium and well done varieties, of course, but I'm sure a bit of selective breeding would sort that out.
The only problem is that you'd have to ban smoking near the herd
Insert
It's unlikely that these bacteria will be used for reducing greenhouse gas. Even if they could be adapted to live under more 'friendly' conditions they'll metabolise methane into... carbon dioxide. That doesn't really solve the problem. On the other hand, methane is notoriously difficult to oxidise partially, so it might be interesting to see if and how this bacteria accomplishes this.
If the earth is truly on a long term warmup - and it wouldn't be surprising at all if it was because the warming/cooling cycles are a constant on our earth - I would rather it warmed than cooled. If we can figure out a way to cool it down, I think the potential disaster could be much worse. There are just as many benefits to warming as cooling, no matter what these egotist head up the ass politico-scientists say. Follow the money. This whole movement is a scam. And honestly, to think man can control these forces is completely foolish.
In a very interesting lecture by a University of Amsterdam professor (Dr. Bas van Geel), he showed very clearly, and to my (being a physicist) eyes conclusively, that the current warm period is directly related to high levels of solar activity.
He showed conclusively that such periods have existed in the past (the medieval optimum, and for instance an 80 year period just b.c.)
The record is based on Be-10 isotopes in treerings (which accurately record solar activity), and all kinds of climate records such as tree growths, ice rafted debris, lake depths, harvest results, desert migrations and more. CO2 plays very little role in the climate, and its rise of atmospheric concentration occurs historically because centuries after the climate has gotten hotter (because of the sun), the oceans heat up, and release more CO2, the equilibrium ocean/athmosphere shifts.
From statistical extrapolation of solar activity, it is likely that the sun will lower its output in the next 5 years (his words), so the end of the warm 20th century is near. I'm curious to see if he's right.
Bart
In the news today,Greenpeace took up arms.It was discovered that there was a bacteria being considered to add to bovine feed to reduce the unGodly farting that they claim will eventually ruin the ozone and killl us all if the farting itself won't.
Their weapons were tranquilizer guns filled with Bean-o as the bacteria prefer an environment that isn't a cows ass.World wide activists are converging on pastures everywhere to dose bessy and calm her destructive colon.There is some angry resistance however as animal rights groups are retaliating with bricks and bats shouting "you spotty bottom greenies are farty as the cows,go F**K yourselves!"
Film @ 11,goodnight.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
the only post with factual content is moderated Flamebait instead of informative? Simply because it refutes the politically correct common wisdom? How is this good moderation?
If we do find an alternative energy source that also emits methane (or same matter as petroleum), at least this will be useful to stop it from being released into the atmosphere.
EW, I don't want that anywhere near my butt.
What about permafrost and seafloor methane hydrates? That's the real problem,
and in both cases you ought to be able to at least meet the 60 degree criterion
easily enough.
Were that I say, pancakes?
Instead of letting the methane be consumed by a bug, why not burn the stuff and use the heat for energy?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The whole cow theory is dated. Now it's permafrost in Siberia that is a concern, since it's going to continue to gain momentum.
http://www.google.com/search?q=permafrost+siberia+methane
Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it.
The problem isn't the cows - although they do fart an enormous amount of methane into the air.
The problem are the clathrates - methane hydrates - that are locked up in the tundra and under the sea. In a nutshell: the tundra has been acting like a giant methane sink for the past several jillion years. If it melts down, and goes quickly, it will release its methane and basically slowly destroy the biosphere. We're talking Permian level extinction event fuck up. The other problem is: the clathrates can't be effectively mined for their methane as a fuel - we're talking millions of km^2 - huge swathes of Siberia and Canada and Alaska, and the methane isn't dense enough to collect. Furthermore, the stuff at the bottom of the ocean is nearly impossible to get at. So, if it goes into the air, the pooch is screwed. From wikipedia:
Methane clathrates are restricted to the shallow lithosphere (i.e.
Now, if this organism can be genetically altered to get happy with low temps and low acidity, then it might be able to spread through the clathrates - but given the depth of the deposits, the low temps, etc. It's Not A Good Thing.
So we need to keep that genie in its bottle....
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
If they could find a bug that eats petroleum, they'd really be onto something.
But;
If I remember correctly, and getting back to basic science and physics, you can't have a bacteria that can consume methane without producing some other by-product or consequence of the consumption. Everything produces some *conversion* of what ever it binds with. So it begs the question; what is it genuinely producing as a convert of the methane? I am not sure about a complete conversion to oxygen so there has to be something else coming out of this.
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All your farts are belong to us!!
I recommend to view these videos to a get a more objective opinion. http://alles-schallundrauch.blogspot.com/2007/11/die-klimaerwrmung-ist-co2-wirklich.html The site is in German, but the videos are in english.
I also wonder about a much more profound and simple to ask question that may have no answer: is global warming more related to ozone destruction or carbon pollution?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...