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Also relevant: Feeding dairy cows seaweed mitigates the amount of methane they pass. Irish famers are beginning to do this because seaweed is easy to come by in

• ianai 8y ago
  I bet it’s the chlorophyll
• stkni 8y ago
  This would be a great win-win! But wouldn't the sequestered CO2 get released back into the environment and potentially the atmosphere?
  • dub4u 8y ago
    Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2.
    • louthy 8y ago
      For a shorter period of time [1] > The lifetime in the air of CO2, the most significant man-made greenhouse gas, is probably the most difficult to determine, because there are several processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between 65% and 80% of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes that take up to several hundreds of thousands of years, including chemical weathering and rock formation. This means that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect climate for thousands of years. > Methane, by contrast, is mostly removed from the atmosphere by chemical reaction, persisting for about 12 years. Thus although methane is a potent greenhouse gas, its effect is relatively short-lived. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhouse-gases-remain-air https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhou...
      • jarvist 8y ago
        My understanding is that the majority of Methane molecules end up as CO2 anyway (Methane -> CH3 radical -> Formaldehyde -> CO2): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#Removal_processes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#Removal_pr... So the underlying CO2 ~100 Yr+ effect is still there, but you also get a 500x benefit from Methane while it is persistent in the environment.
      • Pete_D 8y ago
        Even then, it's worse by weight over most timescales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential: "In the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane has a lifetime of 12.4 years and with climate-carbon feedbacks a global warming potential of 86 over 20 years and 34 over 100 years in response to emissions." (CO2, being the baseline, has a GWP of 1.)
  • adrianN 8y ago
    Yes, if you want to "permanently" (i.e. a thousand years at least) sequester carbon from biomass sources you have to burn them to charcoal and bury that.
    • jacobush 8y ago
      If you bury it deep, millions of years easily.
    • rch 8y ago
      You can also pump CO2 into deep coal seams, displacing CH4 which is then burned in a closed capture system. The CO2 released from burning the CH4 is also sequestered resulting in a net gain since CO2 preferentially adsorbs to coal at a roughly 3:1 ratio to CH4. Economically viable coal seams are widespread globally, and exist within 50 km of most coal burning power plants in the United States.
• nickkell 8y ago
  Hackernews loves these articles that give some kind of hope for a magical solution to climate change. It's easier than the thought that it will require a huge concerted effort across the world and changing the habits of millions
  • Tharkun 8y ago
    I don't see anyone claiming the existence of or holding their breath for a magic solution. All I see is people sharing discoveries that might contribute towards a solution. Reducing the emissions caused by cattle can be a part of the "huge concentrated effort across the world" you mentioned.
    • SiempreViernes 8y ago
      Sure, but there is a solution that is orders of magnitude more effective: don't buy meat, thereby allowing cow farming to end. Not eating meat is however seen as too 'inconvenient' a solution, so instead someone is trying to sell seaweed fed cows as a "partial solution" where it is really more of a gimmick.
      • Tharkun 8y ago
        Statements like "don't buy meat" are much more of a gimmick than tinkering with cattle feed. The latter is a realistic option -- which might not make a huge difference, but it will make a difference. The former is a pipe dream. Humans have been eating meat since before they were human. Good luck changing that in the timeframe we have before climate change becomes very painful.
        • seren 8y ago
          Not buying meat might be to hard to attain, but not eating lamb or beef, and only eating chicken is a step in the right direction. http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-top-10-foods-with-the-biggest-environmental-footprint-2015-9?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-top-10-foods-with-the-bigg... However, to be fair, if you remove all pastures all together, there are probably other bad consequences on ecosystems (including people!). (Disclaimer: I am still eating beef, but less that I used to, which in the grand scheme of things is probably useless)
• digi_owl 8y ago
  On a different note, i recently read that adding charcoal to the feed may help as well...
• pvaldes 8y ago
  The name of the game in that case is overgrazing or at least a bad case of abusing the soil for entire generations. Fires eliminate the shrubs leading to more pastures. After a cycle of repeating the process, all the fertile soil ends in the sea... And then your grandsons have a big problem.