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Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely
- tomglynch 8y agoHow does a discovery like this take place? There must be so many crazy facts like this that have not yet been discovered, and able to make the world a better place. I'm guessing it started out as a hunch and snowballed into a study. Is there a way we can speed up the world's crazy thought ecosystem to promote sharing information that will lead to more discoveries like this?
- greywolf 8y agoyou assume too much when you say it will make the world a better place, instead there's always something that can go wrong with such experiments, and their unintentional consequences
- lobster_johnson 8y agoIt says right there in the article -- a coastal farmer discovered that the cows grazing on nearby seaweed were healthier and had more active periods of heat. A subsequent study found that it also had an effect on methane production.
- louprado 8y agoFor a moment this was the best news I had read in years, until I noticed the story is a year old and the research paper[1] is two years old. Hopefully there has been some progress in the past years but if that were the case we would should have seen another headline by now. At least I haven't. Normally 2 years wouldn't be much time to go from a research paper to production. But this appears to be a simple solution to an urgent problem so it's hard to be patient. [1] https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/43225/ https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/43225/
- malloryerik 8y agoIs there any immediate economic incentive to adding algae into feed? Wouldn't you agree that markets don't deal effectively with many or most commercial endeavors' unwanted side effects (negative externalities), and so authorities often need to step in when market failure causes damage? In this case, if the science is real, a global treaty would seem in order to simply mandate the effective use of seaweed in cow feed. I hope all governments move on things like this, but ultimately, international agencies like the WTO should be, excuse me..., beefed up to deal with these kinds of issues that affect the entire planet and all of its inhabitants.
- acchow 8y ago> Is there any immediate economic incentive to adding algae into feed? You can charge more for it? Many consumers are willing to pay more for environmentally-friendlier options now.
- graeme 8y ago1. That would only affect a small portion of the global market 2. You'd have verification problems, same as with a lot of things now claimed to be organic/free range/etc but aren't really in the sense people expect
- jessaustin 8y agoThere are already people intentionally buying beef straight from producers, to ensure that it's "grass fed". If warming enthusiasts cared as much about this issue as these paleo dieters do about avoiding flavorful beef, they could do the same. As you say, the effect would be small, but why would that stop anyone from doing it?
- graeme 8y agoOh I reread the thread and saw you were only addressing whether there is an immediate incentive. Yes, you're right, there certainly would be one, and it probably could be organic/paleo level successful. Probably doing it privately successfully would help rally support for an eventual law.
- ppeetteerr 8y agoEither we impose a gas credit system on the cattle industry or, more likely, governments subsidize dairy farmers that use algae in their feed. Either way, there is no financial incentive to produce less methane. It will require regulation
- BatFastard 8y agoWhich means it won't happen for at least 3 more years.
- schiffern 8y ago>Either way, there is no financial incentive to produce less methane. There is a distinct thermodynamic incentive to reduce methane, because the methanogenic bacteria are "eating" the energy that the cow would otherwise absorb. This translates directly into a financial incentive, because the cows require less feed. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1d58/15b6d22d81070c173f6281434dd213a557c7.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1d58/15b6d22d81070c173f6281... >Methane is a by-product of the microbial fermentation of carbohydrates in the diets of ruminant animals. Because cattle can lose about 6% of their dietary intake energy as CH4, substantial research to estimate this production and to reduce CH4 emissions has been completed (Johnson and Johnson, 1995).
- rmason 8y agoWith an ag background I've been following this story for a long time. It has excited enough interest in America that trials are underway, I believe off the coast of Maine to grow red algae but I can't find the link. But they've already had luck growing red algae off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Molokai. I've been to Molokai and although there's a lot of farmland there it's laying idle. Most of the land was used previously by Dole I believe to raise pineapple's. I was scheming with some fellow agronomists at the time what we could grow profitably. Most of the former workers commute presently to Maui and work in the hotels. It would be hilarious to me if the entire farming industry ended up taking place off the coast. https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/side-algae-hawaiian-farmers-sell-seaweed-seashore https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/side-algae-hawaiian-farmers...
- ehsankia 8y agoCan anyone provide a sense of scale and impact if these results were to hold and if the majority of the world beef production were to switch to it? My understanding is that around half of the world's greenhouse gas comes from livestock. Would it mean that this could cut our emissions by half? Would it be therefore much more cost efficient to have the government invest is growing and distributing red algae than whatever we're currently spending money on? Do we have a sense of how much it would cost to produce that much seaweed?
- abainbridge 8y ago> My understanding is that around half of the world's greenhouse gas comes from livestock That's not right. The highest number I've been able to find for the whole of agriculture is 24% of world greenhouse gas emissions. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... About 25% of that is methane from livestock (http://old.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-agriculture-and-land-use_12b0# http://old.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/greenhouse-gas-emissi...) So livestock is about 6% of total greenhouse gas emissions.
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
- WheelsAtLarge 8y agoUnfortunately, there are fishermen that are no longer able to make a living because they have depleted the fish in the area they fish, so now they are looking for a new way to make a living. Farming seaweed seems to be a possible alternative to fishing. We'll be seeing a lot more stories about how great seaweed is as the industry starts to make a market for it. Feeding cattle grass will reduce the methane just as much as seaweed, I bet. The problem is that the majority of cows are fed a diet of corn, which is cheap relative to grass, which does not appeal to their digestive system so therefore we get a lot of methane out of the whole process. What I see here is somebody trying to sell seaweed as an additive. But the reality is that if you fed cows the proper feed, grass, then we wouldn't have the big problem with methane. Edit- Update, seems like grass is a bigger methane producer when digested by cows. The problem is the pollution created to produce and transport the corn. I was going by old info. Here's a link. http://newzealmeats.com/blog/grain-fed-vs-grass-fed-beef-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ http://newzealmeats.com/blog/grain-fed-vs-grass-fed-beef-gre...
- rocqua 8y ago> Feeding cattle grass will reduce the methane just as much as seaweed, I bet. From the article, it only takes a few percent of seaweed in the cow diet to reduce methane. I'd guess the same doesn't hold for grass. Cows that get to go into a pasture probably get a few percent of grass.
- himom 8y agoEven so, animal ag still uses lots of land, water, risks pollution of air and water, pandemic and antibotic resistance.
- jgh 8y agoprobably easier to get animals to eat kelp than to get humans to stop eating animals.
- rdruxn 8y agoThe original paper cited in this article is from 2016
- wollstonecraft 8y agoBromoform kills methanogens.
- fratlas 8y agoDumb question. Could Bromoform be put in the existing feed?
- chaseha 8y agoAlso wondering this. The article mentions the difficult problem of scaling up red algae farming - could the active ingredient not be synthesized commercially and added to feed that way? edit, from Wikipedia: "The substance may be hazardous to the environment, and special attention should be given to aquatic organisms. Its volatility and environmental persistence makes bromoform's release, either as liquid or vapor, strongly inadvisable. ... Bromoform is a confirmed animal carcinogen" Although I presume the bromoform binds to the enzymes and/or otherwise reacts in the stomach, as usual there are pros and cons associated with this sort of thing
- HillaryBriss 8y agointeresting info about Bromoform from Wikipedia: Bromoform is the main trihalomethane produced in beachfront salt water swimming pools with concentrations as high as 1.2 ppm (parts per million). Concentrations in freshwater pools are 1000 times lower. Occupational skin exposure limits are set at 0.5 ppm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromoform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromoform i wonder if any of the bromine winds up in the cow's milk or meat
- eloff 8y agoSo this begs the mildly racist question, do Japanese people fart? Can they light their farts on fire? Maybe not if the seaweed in the diet kills off methane producing bacteria.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoHow is that racist? Just being only relevant to one race doesn't make it racist.
- connorelsea 8y agoits a stereotype. not only japanese people eat seaweed
- jiggunjer 8y agoNo, stereotyping would apply some assumptions to an individual based on his group. This on the other hand is a plausible statistical claim. Some stereotypes are based on loud minorities, but others manifest due to the it being true on a statistically meaningful scale. I think it is safe to say on average Japanese have more seaweed in their diet. So if I met a random Japanese person and assume they eat seaweed, then I am stereotyping, but it is rational and informed stereotyping, nothing rude about it.
- mirimir 8y agoUmmm, humans aren't ruminants ;)
- askvictor 8y agoAlso, cows burp (not fart) methane.
- HillaryBriss 8y agoi don't have an answer to your question. but Cooks Illustrated reports that adding kelp to beans makes the beans easier to cook: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6385-flavoring-dried-beans-with-seaweed https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6385-flavoring-drie...
- pbiggar 8y agoI recently heard about Russian cosmonauts eating a lot of dill to counteract farting. It's apparently called a carminative, and seaweed is a carminative too.
- askvictor 8y agoInteresting, but I believe that methane emissions from cows are burps rather than farts, and there's a lot more fermentation going on in a cow's rumen than in our guts, so there might be some other mechanism at play here. Or perhaps not.
- jammi 8y agoOTOH, aren't farts just unreleased burps that passed into the intestines.
- askvictor 8y agoI think in humans burps are a release of swallowed air, while farts are gasses produced by fermentation in the intestines. Ruminants OTOH have a fermentation chamber (rumen) as the first part of their digestive system (their first 'stomach'). Other animals have different fermentation strategies.
- ItsMe000001 8y agoHuman burps are air that you swallowed, or from CO2 from either drinks or produced when stomach acid mixes with bicarbonate. That CO2 does not necessarily has to come out as a burp, it can also pass into the blood stream. We don't have a rumen like cows do, where bacteria start breaking down the food. Our stomachs are mostly free of bacteria (except for things like helicobacter pylori). All our bacteria-activity is in the large intestine. A lot of the gases are absorbed and exhaled through the lungs, not all of it has to come out through the rectum. Much better explanation and a lot more details: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK417/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK417/
- martin-adams 8y agoIf that were the case, I would certainly not want to burp so near my nose.
- antiics 8y agoWhat's the best way to investment exposure to agricultural seaweed?
- adventured 8y agoMost of the largest seaweed producers are unlisted in terms of public stock exchanges, such as Dalian Kowa Foods which is China's largest producer, or Seaweed Harvest Holland in Europe. You could always start your own backyard seaweed production business: "Meet the new US entrepreneurs farming seaweed for food and fuel" https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jun/29/seaweed-farms-us-california-food-fuel https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jun/29...
- qume 8y agoIm bitterly disappointed that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock rarely enter conversation with people who care about climate change, so this is nice to hear it being discussed. Even better something which helps. Im curious however if anyone here knows if the gas is switched from methane to something else or it just isn't produced in the first place and exits the animal as solids and liquids?
- ams6110 8y agoI would suspect it doesn't matter. If the cow doesn't produce methane in its digestion process, it will be produced when the cow excrement biodegrades.
- shanev 8y agoCan this study be done with the cow feed just being plain old grass? There’s lots of anecdotal evidence showing grass fed cows don’t produce much methane, thereby making pasture raised meat environmentally friendly. Yet there doesn’t appear to be many studies on it for whatever reason. Everything is focused on corn-based cow feed.
- __alias 8y agoI don't think that's true at all.
- lasc4r 8y agoI believe grass fed cattle produce more methane actually.
- adenta 8y agoSource?
- justwalt 8y agoHere’s one that I found: https://www.carbonbrief.org/grass-fed-beef-will-not-help-tackle-climate-change https://www.carbonbrief.org/grass-fed-beef-will-not-help-tac...
- lucideer 8y agoThat article says the study found that grazed beef release more carbon than the carbon offset by soil sequestration. It doesn't say it releases more carbon then grain-fed, and actually, while I haven't read the source study, the general implication in the article seems to lean toward grazed beef releasing less than grain-fed (just not, according to the researchers, enough less to be carbon-neutral).
- BenjiWiebe 8y agoI live on a dairy. Totally not a controlled study, but the cows digestive systems can't handle grazing as well as they can handle a nutritionist-controlled diet. Their manure gets bubbly with gas when eating grass.
- lloydde 8y agoHow is that the article’s title and did any of the comments on seaweed read the article? It was the experiment with red algae, not the seaweed experiments that “reduces methane emissions almost entirely”. > Kinley and De Nys tested 20 different species of seaweed on bacteria found in the stomachs of cows. They discovered seaweed reduced methane production by up to 50 percent, depending on the amount administered. But methane reduction at notable levels required high doses of seaweed, almost 20 percent by weight of the sample. This large percentage of seaweed would be difficult to implement outside of the lab and would likely have a negative effect on cow’s digestion. > When the researchers tested a species of red algae called Asparagopsis taxiformis that grows off the coast of Queensland, Australia, they found it reduced methane production by more than 99 percent in the lab. In addition, it only required a dose of less than 2 percent to work effectively.
- amingilani 8y agoFew stories make me as happy as this one did. Thank you OP. Hopefully in the future I can enjoy a beef-steak guilt-free! The cow methane problem is one that literally keeps me up at night. I kept thinking about my inevitable switch to chicken and missing out on a tenderloin.. and how my kids won't be able to eat like me.
- lloydde 8y agoI feel ya and it would make my feel a little better about my meat treats, but improving that end (pun) of the equation seems to be a smaller problem than the energy required. > The findings, while expected, are quite sobering. Pork, chicken, dairy and eggs are equivalent within a factor of two when it came to their environmental burdens, the authors determined. But beef requires far, far more resources than any of those other protein categories. The team calculated that beef requires 28 times more land, six times more fertilizer and 11 times more water compared to those other food sources. That adds up to about five times more greenhouse gas emissions. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-times-more-resources-poultry-dairy-eggs-pork-180952103/#MrYKCCw0yPic3zIo.99 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-...
- shlant 8y agoyea it seems weird that the methane would be the only thing to keep OP up at night...
- himom 8y agoImpossible Burger revolution is a better solution than an incremental improvement.
- circlefavshape 8y agoPork and chicken require less land? Could that be because they're usually kept in cages?
- jsilence 8y agono, it is because their food conversion ratio is better. that anaerobic methane producing process cows are using is not very efficient.
- Mister_X 8y agoI'll be the heretic then... how about you all eat less beef, easy solution to the "problem". And no, I'm not a vege-anything. Just to prove it, here's a great song by the Reverend Horton Heat, that I used to play on my radio show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQynViAF6Ds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQynViAF6Ds
- Animats 8y agoPerhaps the SF bay's salt evaporators could be repurposed for growing algae.
- odammit 8y agoHoly farts, that’s amazing!
- Mister_X 8y agoIt will be interesting to see how this plays out, because right now the West coast from San Francisco North to at least Fort Bragg, has been suffering a kelp die off of great proportions. No one is quite sure whats going on, but apparently due to climate change, or at least warmer ocean water from further South that we've had for the last 5 or more years, has caused the kelp to die off at a rapid rate, to the point of denuding whole sections of ocean bottom. The whole sea urchin industry has been devastated, and those folks received Federal Disaster funds last year to make it through this year, but things are still bleak. It's as big a catastrophe as the Australian coral die off, yet it's not getting much press here in the USA.
- ianai 8y agoThis is part of the opportunity cost of the current extreme political climate and economic situation. Though people would still not necessarily pay much attention.
- briandear 8y agoNo one knows what’s going on, so climate change is the default blame? But actually, California Fish and Wildlife DO know what’s going on: “Environmental stressors included impacts from a toxic algae bloom off the Sonoma coast in 2011, a widespread sea star disease in 2013 that was followed by an explosion in the sea urchin population, and the warm water conditions that have persisted offshore since 2014. In 2014 and 2015, coastal water temperatures along the West Coast rocketed upwards due to a combination of oceanographic features: the “Warm Blob” in 2014, combined with a strong El Niño that began in 2015.” https://cdfwmarine.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/perfect-storm-decimates-kelp/ https://cdfwmarine.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/perfect-storm-de... Climate change seems like a religion. “We don’t know why x is happening, so we’ll just say it’s God’s will.” That’s about the most anti-science attitude possible and it’s being embraced by people who purport to care about science. But, in the case of California kelp, we actually do know what is happening and it has nothing to do with long term climatic events — the warm water was due to cyclical ocean activity: La Niña and that combined with a sea star disease and toxic algae caused this problem. And notice, the problem didn’t exist in 2010. So global warming for hundreds of years, but it had little impact on kelp until just magically in 2015 — that was the tipping point for kelp? This is the sort of nonsense that makes me detest the global warming crowd. Clearly global warming isn’t the cause of the California kelp issue, yet, predictably, that issue gets added into the propaganda machine. Let’s say climate change isn’t the cause of Absolutely Every Natural Phenomenon.. but there are those that would make policy as if it were. A half degree rise in temperature — assuming that is actually true, isn’t going to cause a massive kelp die-off, considering Pacific ocean temperatures fluctuate by far more dramatic amounts routinely due to El Niño/La Niña. The ocean is far more resilient. Pollution is a far more dire danger. Chemical runoff, trash dumping — far more toxic to the ocean than anything else. But, it easier just to spout “climate change” and the “woke” folks will just nod knowingly, actual causation or proof be damned. And we just continue along the socially acceptable path of blaming capitalism for all the world’s problems without actually doing much to solve anything.
- TimesOldRoman 8y agoWhere does the methane go? Does the hydrogen and carbon just move to the dung and meat? Genuinely curious.
- go_prodev 8y ago> Asparagopsis produces a compound called Bromoform (CHBR3) Which is an animal carcinogen according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromoform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromoform
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sunstone 8y agoSure, but have you tasted the milk? It really tastes off.
- inteleng 8y agoHow could you possibly know this?
- sunstone 8y agoBecause I am known for knowing things I cannot possibly know. For example: Why is it that, as a rule of thumb, people that make money make it in real estate? Why is it that all the pictures of the sun are orange but the sun is not orange? Why exactly, is it that people prefer gas ranges to electric ranges? Why is it that horoscopes are demonstrably false but thermodynamics is demonstrably true? Why is it that heat rises but it's cold in the mountains? I have the answers but you have only the questions.
- aaron695 8y agoMethane .... having an estimated lifetime of 8.9±0.6 years. (Wiki - Atmospheric_methane) Currently Global Warming is doing good, it starts going bad in about 5 years, then I'm unsure how long it'll be before it gets back to normal... then we finally see the bad. So reducinging at the moment is useless and by the time it's negative I can't see how we won't have lab grown meat, which solves actual issues like massive amounts of land being used to make meat .
- aviv 8y agoAs if we need more reasons to consume even more dead flesh...
- JohnJamesRambo 8y agoWhy don’t they just feed the bromoform compound responsible for the activity? Seems a lot easier than trucking seaweed all over the place.
- wolfi1 8y agoever heard of chloroform and its characteristics?
- Zaab1t 8y agoIt would be interesting to know /what/ it is in Asparagopsis taxiformis that has this effect
- elbear 8y agoI wonder: would there be any negative side-effects on the cows? Another way of putting it: is methane production in the gut of the cow a consequence of a useful process or is it something the cows can live without? Another question to ponder: would seaweed farming at such scale have negative consequences?
- jsilence 8y agocows can not digest the cellulose ingredient in grass. essentially they foster anaerobic bacteria in their stomach which digest the cellulose. the cows live off the bacteria and their byproducts. there are several different microbiobial paths from cellulose to methane with stages including acetic acid, acetone and hydrogen. depending on the conditions in the cow some of these paths are prefered or not. I do not know whether not producing methane is bad for the cow in the long run. I guess it is not, given that the farmer mentioned in the aeticel has been feeding them the algae for a longer period of time.
- ummonk 8y agoI wonder whether the bacteria survive in the cow stomachs when the cows are only being fed kelp, and (if they don't, what happens to the cow if it is switched back to a grass diet?).
- jsilence 8y agoregarding your othe question: I'm pretty sure Bromoform can be produced large scale in classical chemical plants at low cost. question is whether that, applied as a fodder additive, has the same effect.
- alexserravidal 8y agoGood!
- rogerlb 8y agoSame!
- jmorapruna 8y agoQualsevol parida
- alexserravidal 8y agoJijiji
- donatj 8y agoSerious question, could there be any way to instead capture said methane and use it for fuel? I feel like if the farms could make a decent buck off capturing it there’d be more incentive than say paying for seaweed.
- lifeisstillgood 8y agoYes, but it seems to need a surgical insertion into one of the cows stomachs so is probably dangerous / expensive. https://phys.org/news/2008-07-cow-backpacks-methane-gas.html https://phys.org/news/2008-07-cow-backpacks-methane-gas.html
- donatj 8y agoInteresting. I was thinking more at the building level but I suppose people don’t like animals not being allowed to go outside however.
- logfromblammo 8y agoFistulation surgery isn't all that dangerous or expensive. The major expense is in keeping the rumen port clean and the cow healthy and free from infection afterward. It's a significant amount of work and consumable supplies, that has to be done by a human worker, every day, for as long as the cow has the port. Granted, a gas port should be smaller than one large enough to stick your hand through, and pull stomach contents out of, but even so, an entire herd of ported cows would not be able to pay for the additional ranch hand work necessary to keep them alive. You need a port-cleaning and health-monitoring robot, at minimum.
- kmm 8y agoThe article says that a cow produces about 100 kg of methane a year. At 0.7 kg/m^3, that's about 142 cubic meters of gas per year. Natural gas costs a few dollars per thousand cubic meters... So even without going into efficiency and the cost of capturing and purifying, it's definitely not going to be worth it.
- haroldp 8y agohttps://i.imgur.com/OUNsvlR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/OUNsvlR.jpg
- emmelaich 8y agoFrom 2017. Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12998395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12998395
- sgroppino 8y agoMaybe it helps with heath and safety... I know, old news, but I can't resist: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25922514 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25922514
- std_throwaway 8y agoDoes the methane get released after the cow has finished digestion and the manure is left to rot? The carbon has to go somewhere if it's not turned into methane inside the cow.
- mchannon 8y agoApparently most bovine-sourced methane comes from the burp part of the cycle rather than the fart. Manure may actually come in third when it comes to methane and the cow. Like humans (86%!), I suspect most carbon that passes through a cow is exhaled as carbon dioxide.
- std_throwaway 8y ago> I suspect most carbon that passes through a cow is exhaled as carbon dioxide. That would mean that the cow gets higher nutritional value and can needs less food.
- tomohawk 8y agoPerhaps they should study the nutritional impacts of the resulting beef before they get too far with this. Grass fed beef is much tastier and much more nutritious than feed lot fed beef. Does feeding the seaweed reduce the need for using antibiotics required when feeding corn to cattle? That would be a real win.
- neuromancer2701 8y agoIt would be interesting to compare feedlot vs feedlot/algae vs grassfed. There is already a solution to this problem that has numerous other benefits. Revert all of the former grasslands that are monoculture fields of corn to raise grassfed beef.
- rocqua 8y agoIn what sense is grass fed beef more nutritious? It's a rather nebulous term, hence my question.
- tomohawk 8y agoEating grass provides better nutrition for the cattle, and the meat ends up with more nutrition such as omega 3s. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease/expert-answers/grass-fed-beef/faq-20058059 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease... In a feed lot, cattle are fed a diet that practically requires antibiotics to keep them alive long enough to slaughter.
- learc83 8y agoThey mostly use antibiotics to promote growth. Feed lots increase risk of disease because cattle are closer together, but their diet doesn't really have anything to do with the use of antibiotics.
- greggeter 8y agoReductions in methane could also mean a change in their gut biome. Will be important to look at this thing from end to end. No pun intended.
- deejbee 8y agoDoes anyone know if there is any research on WHY this algae acts in this way? Would it be possible to either synthesise the chemical compound(s) involved, once identified without having to farm it?
- jessaustin 8y agoIt's really easy to grow algae. I have to clean it out of stock tanks constantly. Usually it's green, but if I leave a tank alone long enough the red will take over. This is fresh water mixed with cow saliva and some plant matter, but presumably it would be just as easy with salt water? Chemical processes typically produce CO2, due simply to their energy requirements.
- shozab 8y agowirecast pro 9 Live Video Streaming https://thatssoft.com/wirecast-pro-9-crack/ https://thatssoft.com/wirecast-pro-9-crack/
- astannard 8y agoDoes it work on humans too? Just asking for a friend
- ronwen 8y agoHaha, I was thinking the same thing.... < toot >
- astannard 8y agoDoes it work on humans too, just asking for a friend?
- mrfusion 8y agoHow is this possible though? What’s happening on the molecular level? And how can we drastically change their digestion without harming them?
- r3vo 8y agoI'm sure that this is a dumb question, but is methane from cows a contributor to global warming? Is that the significance of this study? Thanks.
- DonHopkins 8y agoRonald Reagan's lasting legacy is that car farts are the one thing he was actually correct about. http://www.chicagonow.com/dennis-byrnes-barbershop/2016/12/ronald-reagan-was-right-about-cow-farts-and-greenhouse-gases/ http://www.chicagonow.com/dennis-byrnes-barbershop/2016/12/r...
- mchannon 8y agoThe dumbest questions begin with a disclaimer like the one used here. Yes, methane, especially from cows and livestock, is a contributor to global warming. Other sources of methane worthy of concern include oil and gas wells (apparently they leak a lot) and other quasi-natural sources like the breakdown of plant matter in forests (often because the forest is cleared). Methane is far more potent than CO2 but also far shorter-lived. I would argue in many ways it's far less of a concern because it doesn't interact with plant and animal life to anywhere near the extent elevated CO2 levels do.
- r3vo 8y agoOk I assumed that was the case. Thanks for the clarification.
- giocampa 8y agoWould this work also for... Ehm a friend of mine?
- GW150914 8y agoJokes aside, this won’t reduce flatulence, just methane. Most humans don’t have methanogen bacteria in their guts anyway, so it wouldn’t matter.
- agentultra 8y agoI stopped eating meat for climate reasons; methane production from cattle being a major factor. Glad to see that there might be a solution to that problem.
- devmunchies 8y agountil climate change starts reversing, its probably safe to continue your trend.
- dopamean 8y agoHonest question here. Didn't we already know this? I am nearly certain that I heard about the benefits of putting certain types of seaweed in cow feed to affect methane when I was in high school nearly 20 years ago.
- okreallywtf 8y agoSerious question, what incentive is there for this to be done on a large scale by anyone? The EPA is being systematically dismantled and the official line of the government (or at least, those in charge of the government) is that climate change is not man made. If it is just a natural process, how could our food systems have any impact on it? I can't imagine how this wouldn't add at least some costs to feed prices, and my guess is farmers are operating on razor thin margins already. Without some government regulations that put a price on greenhouse gasses why would anyone implement this except on boutique scales?
- Rhinobird 8y ago>... dairy farmer named Joe Dorgan inadvertently conducted an experiment on his herd in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Dorgan noticed cows that grazed on washed-up seaweed in paddocks along the shore were healthier and more productive ... and found the new diet saved him money and induced “rip-roaring heats,” or longer cycles of reproductive activity.
- okreallywtf 8y agoThats great, but it only saved him money because it washed up right on his shore. It saves a small farmer money to let their cows graze on lush green pastures that they need to keep eaten down anyways but that doesn't mean that letting cows graze on lush pastures saves the industry money overall. In general its going to cost more more than likely to get seaweed into the supply chain. Its a race to the bottom, it has to be cheaper than subsidized corn which almost nothing is.
- haroldp 8y agoSlap a "No Cow Farts" sticker/logo on beef raised with a sufficient level of seaweed in their diet. Choose that instead of farty-beef at the store. Don't expect anything to work as well as individuals changing their minds about what is important and acting on it.
- okreallywtf 8y ago
- shwin 8y agoMy partner is studying the effects of cow grazing on various greenhouse gas things, and the amount of data you need to get/the number of times you need to replicate before policy makers are willing to step in, is really quite substantial. I showed this article to her last year when it popped up, and she said "show me a large sample size and replicate it stateside and then I'll start caring." harsh, but I think that's where we are with this kind of thing.
- shwin 8y agoAlso, "they found it reduced methane production by more than 99 percent in the lab." In the lab? On "bacteria found in the stomach of cows"? That's a long way off from what the title suggests; this research is definitely still valuable, but I think we do scientific reporting a disservice when we make much bolder claims than the actual science bears out. Lab studies != actual cows eating stuff
- lovemenot 8y agoLab studies ~= spherical cows eating stuff
- dghughes 8y agoThere is a big industry in seaweed harvesting carrageenan is extracted from it to use as a thickener it's used in ice cream and other products. The 2014 study mentioned is from my region the Atlantic Veterinary College. There was a large Irish Moss industry here years ago but most of it has switched to Asian markets with cheaper labour and tropical climate. Although there may soon be a glut of seaweed and any cattle farmers may be in luck. It seems carrageenan is the flavour of the month toxin everyone is now trying to avoid (of course it's harmless).
- haroldp 8y ago> of course it's harmless Unless you're celiac. It is close enough to gluten that many celiacs have the same reaction to carrageenan as gluten. The real flavor of the month is gluten-free and it's getting swept up in that.
- gowld 8y agohttps://academic.oup.com/jn/article/138/3/469/4670224 https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/138/3/469/4670224 says carageenan is harmful.
- dghughes 8y agoHere's Dr. Joe Schwarcz opinion as well, specific to carrageenan in chocolate milk: http://montrealgazette.com/technology/science/the-right-chemistry-carrageenan-in-chocolate-milk-is-no-cause-for-concern http://montrealgazette.com/technology/science/the-right-chem...
- enknamel 8y agoI've seen this posted many times. What's the outcome?
- ChuckMcM 8y agoI have some Japanese friends who have recommended seaweed as a treatment for flatulence. That they have this working at 99% in livestock is pretty amazing. If you could get sheep and cows onto this sort of program it would be a huge deal.
- jjtheblunt 8y agoNot raising supernatural numbers of cows for murder also eliminates the problem within a few decades...which i mention because it's plausible the world is moving this way. [ For the cows, I hope so, and for things to be learned in sustainable nutrition as well. ]
- coss 8y agoNow that I think about it - it seems really silly that the solution to cow methane emissions is eating less hamburgers.
- mklarmann 8y agoAFAIK garlic does too. But the solution creates another problem because of higher nitrous oxide (n2o) concentrations. Which is much worse for the climate.