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Seaweed Could Make Cows Burp Less Methane and Cut Their Carbon Hoofprint (technologyreview.com)
A diet supplemented with red algae could lessen the huge amounts of greenhouse gases emitted by cows and sheep, if we can just figure out how to grow enough. From a report: In a wooden barn on the edge of campus at the University of California, Davis, cattle line up at their assigned feed slots to snatch mouthfuls of alfalfa hay. This past spring, several of these Holstein dairy cows participated in a study to test a promising path to reducing methane emissions from livestock, a huge source of the greenhouse gases driving climate change. By adding a small amount of seaweed to the animals' feed, researchers found, they could cut the cows' methane production by nearly 60%. Each year, livestock production pumps out greenhouse gases with the equivalent warming effect of more than 7 gigatons of carbon dioxide, roughly the same global impact as the transportation industry. Nearly 40% of that is produced during digestion: cattle, goats, and sheep belch and pass methane, a highly potent, albeit relatively short-lived, greenhouse gas.
If the reductions achieved in the UC Davis study could be applied across the worldwide livestock industry, it would eliminate nearly 2 gigatons of those emissions annually -- about a quarter of United States' total climate pollution each year. Ermias Kebreab, an animal science professor at UC Davis who leads the work, is preparing to undertake a more ambitious study in the months ahead, evaluating whether smaller amounts of a more potent form of seaweed can cut methane emissions even further. Meanwhile, some businesses have begun to explore what could be the harder challenge: Growing it on a massive scale.
If the reductions achieved in the UC Davis study could be applied across the worldwide livestock industry, it would eliminate nearly 2 gigatons of those emissions annually -- about a quarter of United States' total climate pollution each year. Ermias Kebreab, an animal science professor at UC Davis who leads the work, is preparing to undertake a more ambitious study in the months ahead, evaluating whether smaller amounts of a more potent form of seaweed can cut methane emissions even further. Meanwhile, some businesses have begun to explore what could be the harder challenge: Growing it on a massive scale.
If the reductions achieved in the UC Davis study could be applied across the worldwide livestock industry, ...
Applied *worldwide"? That's a pretty big undertaking - and a LOT of seaweed routinely grown and, probably, shipped as a feed additive.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
We already went over this before on Slashdot. Even if you scraped all the seaweed from the sea floor, there still wouldn't be nearly enough for all the cows. The solution is to engineer something to feed the cattle or the people (that doesn't come from cattle).
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
This was studied by a Canadian researcher, who later moved to Australia? See 2016 blog post here: https://blog.csiro.au/seaweed-hold-key-cutting-methane-emissions-cow-burps/ Maybe fully synthetic beef is a better idea - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWtEVbrNdI8&t=158s?
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Feed that cattle cabbage until they are profitable.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Hi Chris, so glad you are not anonymous and therefore your opinion is more reliable! (Uh, wut?)
So anytime you are ready to post your full real name, address, phone and government ID we will be glad to listen to you. Until then you are no more reliable than any other idiot here.
You fucking boring morons with your ad hominem attacks are well so fucking boring. And no it isnt ad hominem to call you fucking boring or stupid because you already crossed that line so it is merely a statement of fact.
OK, well maybe, but we do have a bit of a better understanding now, and beef increases the risk of bowel cancer anyway. Maybe try watching the video and see what actually goes into that particular type - pretty much stuff you already eat...
They don't eat grains, either. At least not naturally.
Not all hydrocarbons are the same bro.
Methane has a larger greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide.
"Crops use a lot more CO2 than trees" CITATION REQUIRED REPUBLICAN
So they can get their own seaweed.
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"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
So some of the most valuable real estate on the planet should be flooded as gravity storage for water? That's an astonishingly unproductive idea.
So is feeding seaweed to cattle.
California is driving these ideas with laws that they believe will save the planet from global warming while they ignore far more productive means to reduce the production of global warming gasses. If they were taking this problem seriously then they'd find some smart people that know how this all works and take their advice. One that comes to mind is Dr. Patrick Moore. Dr. Moore's website: http://ecosense.me/ Here's an opinion article he wrote years ago about this: http://ecosense.me/2017/01/18/...
In the 1970s and 1980s the USA was putting nuclear power plants on line at a rate of one gigawatt of new capacity per month. This is not new technology but it is exceedingly safe, so low carbon that it produces less CO2 per kWh than "zero carbon" wind and solar, will run 24/7 for months at a time (which wind and solar could never do), and do so as cheap or cheaper than solar ever could. Maybe wind power can be cheaper but that still leaves the problems of being intermittent (which adds costs in other ways), and higher CO2. If we could build 12 nuclear power plants per year 40 years ago then I'm guessing we could build 24 per year today. And we'll have to build them that fast soon just to keep up with demand.
I hear this all the time, "but solar power is getting cheaper every day!" Well, you think it's impossible for nuclear power to get cheaper? How did solar get so cheap in the first place? My guess is it got cheap with competition, experience, economies of scale, and just generally being sold on the open market for utilities to buy. Nuclear power will get cheaper as we build them. That's because we'd gain experience, economies of scale, competition, and so on. Any complaints on nuclear power being expensive is the result of not building them for the last 40 years.
This explains why the wind and solar power advocates fear nuclear power so much. It's not because of radioactive waste or what not. They fear nuclear power because they know if anyone starts building nuclear power again then their market advantage disappears. Wind and solar cannot compete against nuclear power on price or CO2 reductions.
Oh, getting back to the hydro storage angle, storage technology cannot save wind and solar. Battery storage is not cheap. Pumped hydro storage is cheap but we'd need a lot of it to make wind and solar viable. Unless you want to see a lot of valuable land flooded then we will not have enough storage. Even if we did have storage that's cheap and plentiful then this helps nuclear power as much as wind and solar. Nuclear reactors like to run real steady, changing output on a nuclear reactor stresses the materials and so they don't like to change output if they don't have to. Put a big battery bank outside a nuclear power plant and the batteries load follow instead of the reactor. If someone builds a battery for wind and solar power then expect that to be used by the utility for managing their coal, nuclear, and natural gas power as well.
California is just full of astonishingly unproductive ideas. They will have to learn to embrace nuclear power or face blackouts.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
In addition, there isn't enough seaweed to feed all the cows and the cost is a big factor. This would have to be mandated in a big way to even make a dent.... Sure they can isolate the specifics to bring down costs and create something cheaper but without mandating it there is a snowball's chance in hell.
The reality is that we will just have to TAX meat by warming impact and only the people who can afford it will eat a lot of it. This wouldn't be different than truffles etc.
BTW, global warming is going to price more people out of products like truffles or natural coffee (which is already being padded with fillers.) To create a direct artificial cost burden on a product is a political hurdle but we are indirectly forcing price hikes on thousands of other products as supply dwindles... due to in part to us not limiting meat production... Arguably, we are subsidizing meat at the price of everything else because we aren't smart enough to see we MUST choose winners and losers. Doing nothing is a choice. You see meat prices now, adjust to your budget if it actually impacts you and bitch regardless... but you'll not think of all the other costs down the road that are staring you in the face at this moment.
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If someone builds a battery for wind and solar power then expect that to be used by the utility for managing their coal, nuclear, and natural gas power as well.
Tesla's battery at Hornsdale has proven that battery storage is good enough not only for grid frequency stabilization but also for arbitrage.
That would depend on which isotope of carbon is involved.
And I suppose iif its bonded with hydrogen or deuterium, or even tritium
Cow flatulence, according to the article, is responsible for as much greenhouse gas emmissions as the transportation industry. Without changing the diets of cattle, or forcing everyone to drive electric cars, carbon dioxide emissions could be cut in half by combining these two things so that the same objectives are achieved by a single action instead of two:
RIDE COWS!
Look at the situation. We have like, billions of cows, most of them standing around doing NOTHING. We, as a society, produce X gigatons of CO2 moving stuff around, while the cows farting also produces roughly X gigatons of the same gas in the same amount of time, resulting in a total of 2 * X gigatons of CO2 per time period.
If, however, we all abandoned our cars and trucks, and just rode cows, we could ELIMINATE X gigatons of CO2, just by doing that. PLUS, as a free bonus, EVERYONE gets heated leather seats to ride around on, no more cheap, shitty vinyl or cloth seats! AND If your ride ever breaks down, instead of calling AAA or a tow service and paying hundreds of dollars, you just call your nearest friend, who rides his cow out, bringing his wife and kids, plus a BIG ‘OL BUCKET of BBQ sauce and some fire wood, and instead of your day being ruined, you get barbeque BURGERS and STEAKS! IT’S A WIN-WIN, FOLKS!
IF your cow was lactating at the time she broke down, guess what? You get milkshakes to wash those burgers down with! You know it’s the right thing to do! Write your member of congress or senator, or preferably both, and DEMAND we eliminate all gasoline and diesel-powered cars and trucks from America’s highways and bighways, and replace them with good ‘ol BESSY!
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Crops use a lot more CO2 than trees.
Pretty much all the CO2 that is taken up by crops is released again when you (or animals) eat them.
Err, meat produces about 4 times as much CH4 as rice. Both need to be tacked source. What's the problem with feeding them a bit of seaweed, that's been done for centuries in seaside farms anyway!
So? Everything dies and the carbon comes back to atmosphere. What matters is how long the carbon is trapped out of the air.
In tropical regions there are 3 to 4 crops a year so there is always carbon in crop form. During winter northern climates may not have standing crops but most trees also lose most leaves so forests are not doing any carbon uptake. So that just leaves the bodies of the trees. That is a small increase in heat during winter for decrease in heat during the entire year. I dont see a problem?
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