Science Cutting down on cow burps with seaweed? OSU to study a possible climate solution - It can be hard to imagine cows eating seaweed. But that could be one of the solutions to reduce methane emissions from cattle farming.

Oregon State University researchers just received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study how introducing seaweed to cow diets can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Seaweed has been studied before for its natural ability to reduce methane emissions in cattle. Cows, along with other ruminants, 'burp' methane as a byproduct of their fermentation-based digestion process. Natural compounds found in seaweed can inhibit the production of methane in cows.

According to the EPA, cattle represent a quarter of all methane emissions in the U.S. Methane has 28 times the global warming power of CO2.

“Most of the projects at this point where people try to mitigate methane is done with dairy cattle or feedlot cattle where it’s easy to manipulate that type of diet," said Project Director Juliana Ranches.

Her team will instead be studying cows on a 100-acre pasture in Eastern Oregon, where cows are mostly grazing on the land. She said they’re hoping to learn how much seaweed is needed so that ranchers can implement this diet. On average, Ranches said studies have shown around a 30-50% reduction in methane emissions depending on the variables.

Ranches said the previous studies on seaweed supplements have used asparagopsis, a type of red algae originally researched over a decade ago. For this study, they'll be using Pacific dulse, a type of seaweed grown commercially by Oregon Seaweed in Garibaldi.

Ranches said this seaweed, which is grown in tanks, could be an easier way to scale production.

"Maybe one day every person can have a seaweed tank on their farm," she said.

Seaweed could also be used as a natural alternative to other ways of reducing methane emissions in cows, including a chemical additive commercially sold under the name Bovaer.

This study will measure the methane emissions from these cows over a period of around three years. They’re also looking for ways to boost the nutritional value of the seaweed through bio-engineering so it can be both a supplement and a way to reduce emissions for ranchers.

L/A

 

[Coldgrip]

Okay, but how will cutting down on cow flatulence make China or India cut down on their pollution?

 

[Coral Apples]

I wouldn't be against seaweed being a supplemented food for cows, especially if it gets people off bitching about cow burps and I'm able to eat a steak in peace. I also think about how maybe it could benefit them and how it could maybe pass on some of the nutritional content seaweed contains. Maybe some more omega 3s, some antioxidants and a boost in iodine. It would also depend on the amount they'd actually need to feed to the cows to get their original intention to cut down burps, is it enough to do anything? Could they just give some form of seaweed extract instead?

Then again, would a cow be affected by the excess iodine and the potential heavy metal load that comes with seaweed? If it will be farmed, the metals should be a lesser issue and cows is big, so might be fine depending on the percentage of their diet would be seaweed. But like with anything involved with changing an animal's natural diet, maybe we just don't. When cows can be cows, they're great for the environment.

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

Okay, but how will cutting down on cow flatulence make China or India cut down on their pollution?

Feed Pajeets seaweed maybe they’ll stop shitting in the Ganges so much.

 

[JohnnyG]

some quick maths for everyone...
I just wonder how many greenhouse gasses it would take to ship north of a billion tons of seaweed to each of those states

It’s not that bad logistically, Just like corn and hay, seaweed can be dehydrated to ship and easily rehydrated. Shipping massive amounts is trivial and the infrastructure already exists to do it. Seaweed can also be farmed anywhere, it’s not temperamental.

To continue the back of the envelope maths/autism: LA to Dallas, Chicago to Cheyenne, and Savannah to Wichita are 3 random port-to-beef journeys of about 1000-1400 miles. Shipping costs appear to be as low as 1-5 cents per ton mile, or $10-50 per ton to get 1000 miles inland, or $10-50 billion to transport it all that far.

As a comparison to the total cost, seaweed appears to cost about $200-2000 per dry ton, so shipping doesn't appear to be the major cost. But more important than that is...

I wouldn't be against seaweed being a supplemented food for cows, especially if it gets people off bitching about cow burps and I'm able to eat a steak in peace.

...the fact that assuming this is intended to be an honest solution to a real problem is a mistake. To the study authors it's simply another round of government grant funding whose conclusion will always be "needs more research". To the activists supporting it, it's just another way to grab political power and make normal people's lives more difficult and expensive.

Same reason we need "safe & clean power", but the more feasible a given source of it gets, the more the Ecos turn against it (nuclear, hydro, geothermal, etc). Same violent crime, drug addiction, racism, sexism, etc. can never be solved or improved, but instead require massive bureaucracies to make the problem worse and maintain a permanent emergency.

 

[Nopenopenope]

Turn the beef into goyfeed and make bugs more appetising. It's all very semitic.

 

[Vargerd]

my point wasn't about the cost, but how much greenhouse gasses would br created by trucking millions of tons of seaweed thousands of miles deep into landlocked states. it kind of defeats the purpose of reducing greenhouse gasses from cow burps.

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

my point wasn't about the cost, but how much greenhouse gasses would br created by trucking millions of tons of seaweed thousands of miles deep into landlocked states. it kind of defeats the purpose of reducing greenhouse gasses from cow burps.

Eh, it‘s questionable if it actually adds anything substantial to the pollution. It’s not like those trucks would be lying dormant without the added volume, they’d just be trucking billions of fertilizer or cattle feed or sex toys farmers need instead. The added cost to the environment would be pretty minimal, when you have tens of billions of cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, etc. people really underestimate the size of the cattle industry.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Would this make my dog's nuclear farts less deadly or am I screwed?

 

[Vargerd]

Eh, it‘s questionable if it actually adds anything substantial to the pollution. It’s not like those trucks would be lying dormant without the added volume, they’d just be trucking billions of fertilizer or cattle feed or sex toys farmers need instead. The added cost to the environment would be pretty minimal, when you have tens of billions of cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, etc. people really underestimate the size of the cattle industry.

it's not like consumers would purchase less funko, sex toys or anything else because of the seaweed shipments. you can't just add billions of tons of shipments into the transportation ecosystem with no change to fuel usage. You either need more trucks or to have existing trucks haul more which does burn fuel, and with the sheer ammount of seaweed needed, it would take over 25,000 semi's loaded with nothing but seaweed to meet the demand of the least cow producing states. for the 5th largest beef producing state, you're actually closer to 1.4 billion pounds, and it only goes up from there.

 

[Also Not a Fake Name]

Im gonna go feed those cows beans