4 ms·

It Wasn’t the Cows After All

29 points by hispanic 7y ago

grody 7y ago
Nah, it's still the cows. No citation of a livestock emissions figure is made by the author. They took an excellent study which didn't mention cows at all and repackaged it as clickbait for this company's blog... 29 gigagrams of methane per year from fertilizer plants, says the study. (The 28 gigagrams figure in the article is misquoted, Ctrl+F for "29 (±18) Gigagram per year" here https://www.elementascience.org/article/10.1525/elementa.358/ https://www.elementascience.org/article/10.1525/elementa.358... ) 6.2 teragrams of methane per year from livestock emissions, says this other study https://extension.psu.edu/livestock-methane-emissions-in-the-united-states https://extension.psu.edu/livestock-methane-emissions-in-the... Last I checked 6.2 teragrams is a lot more than 29 gigagrams. On another note... I highly recommend looking at the original paper. Awesome visual of emissions data captured by Cornell University sensors onboard a Google Street View vehicle! Image here: https://www.elementascience.org/article/10.1525/elementa.358/elementa-7-358-g2.png https://www.elementascience.org/article/10.1525/elementa.358... It's unfortunate that so much methane is released by fertilizer plants through incomplete chemical reactions, improper combustion, and leaks. 100x more than was previously estimated, in fact. Also a bit curious - how did Cornell researchers get their sensors onboard a Google Street View car? Did Cornell approach Google for this study or vice versa?
- Terretta 7y ago
  > It's unfortunate that so much methane is released by fertilizer plants through incomplete chemical reactions, improper combustion, and leaks. 100x more than was previously estimated, in fact. It’s not unfortunate. It’s not luck. It’s design. And since it’s technology, not fortune, it can be redesigned and reworked.
hamilyon2 7y ago
Gigagram? 10 thousand ton?
- ncmncm 7y ago
  One thousand tons. So, 29,000 tons, equivalent to a million tons of CO2. Plus the actual CO2, even more than that.
- gingabriska 7y ago
  1 tone = 10^6 grams Gigagram= 10^9 grams Gigagram= 10^3 tons
ncmncm 7y ago
Roger Gordon (http://www.greennh3.com/ http://www.greennh3.com/) has a design for a small-scale ammonia production system that individual farmers could drive from their own wind turbines. It produces no methane. He has not found investors yet. Driving these big polluters out of business would be a great service to the world, and could be profitable besides. They don't just leak methane, they also release huge amounts of CO2. They have no reason to leak methane; it even costs them money. They are just sloppy.
ris 7y ago
> Once cattle—raised on grass without synthetic fertilizer—are accurately assessed Except this does not cover the vast majority of cattle consumed. And it doesn't cover the effect of forested land being cleared for cattle production.

29 points by hispanic 7y ago

Nah, it's still the cows. No citation of a livestock emissions figure is made by the author. They took an excellent study which didn't mention cows at all and repackaged it as clickbait for this company's blog... 29 gigagrams of methane per year from fertilizer plants, says the study. (The 28 gigagrams figure in the article is misquoted, Ctrl+F for "29 (±18) Gigagram per year" here https://www.elementascience.org/article/10.1525/elementa.358/ https://www.elementascience.org/article/10.1525/elementa.358... ) 6.2 teragrams of methane per year from livestock emissions, says this other study https://extension.psu.edu/livestock-methane-emissions-in-the-united-states https://extension.psu.edu/livestock-methane-emissions-in-the... Last I checked 6.2 teragrams is a lot more than 29 gigagrams. On another note... I highly recommend looking at the original paper. Awesome visual of emissions data captured by Cornell University sensors onboard a Google Street View vehicle! Image here: https://www.elementascience.org/article/10.1525/elementa.358/elementa-7-358-g2.png https://www.elementascience.org/article/10.1525/elementa.358... It's unfortunate that so much methane is released by fertilizer plants through incomplete chemical reactions, improper combustion, and leaks. 100x more than was previously estimated, in fact. Also a bit curious - how did Cornell researchers get their sensors onboard a Google Street View car? Did Cornell approach Google for this study or vice versa?

Terretta 7y ago
> It's unfortunate that so much methane is released by fertilizer plants through incomplete chemical reactions, improper combustion, and leaks. 100x more than was previously estimated, in fact. It’s not unfortunate. It’s not luck. It’s design. And since it’s technology, not fortune, it can be redesigned and reworked.

hamilyon2 7y ago

Gigagram? 10 thousand ton?

ncmncm 7y ago
One thousand tons. So, 29,000 tons, equivalent to a million tons of CO2. Plus the actual CO2, even more than that.
gingabriska 7y ago
1 tone = 10^6 grams Gigagram= 10^9 grams Gigagram= 10^3 tons

ncmncm 7y ago

Roger Gordon (http://www.greennh3.com/ http://www.greennh3.com/) has a design for a small-scale ammonia production system that individual farmers could drive from their own wind turbines. It produces no methane. He has not found investors yet. Driving these big polluters out of business would be a great service to the world, and could be profitable besides. They don't just leak methane, they also release huge amounts of CO2. They have no reason to leak methane; it even costs them money. They are just sloppy.

ris 7y ago

> Once cattle—raised on grass without synthetic fertilizer—are accurately assessed Except this does not cover the vast majority of cattle consumed. And it doesn't cover the effect of forested land being cleared for cattle production.