Is this a silver bullet ?

[thesilentone]

 

[teslacoils]

No.

Actually looking at the main greenhouse gas emissions helps. Close to sixty percent of the sources are electricity generation and transport. Compared to around twelve percent from agriculture.

The solution is to massively curtail recreational air travel, and stop all countries burning coal. That's day one. Agriculture, farting cows etc should be way down the list.

 

[thesilentone]

They argue emissions from cows (alone) contribute 4.4% to Climate Change, double the climate impact of aviation.

 

[___\0/___]

Our milk works out at 900 g CO2e/l ( although due to yield increase I think it will be lower this year) UK average is 1400 and the figure everyone uses is the world average of 2400.

Organic soya milk is around 600 so in theory I'm not that far away if seaweed helped me get on par with organic soya milk that's huge selling point.

Only thing I will say and it's just my opinion is that some of the people pushing emissions agenda are using it to bolster a vegan message and have no interest in the message that UK agriculture is not that far away.

 

[yellowbelly]

No.

Actually looking at the main greenhouse gas emissions helps. Close to sixty percent of the sources are electricity generation and transport. Compared to around twelve percent from agriculture.

The solution is to massively curtail recreational air travel, and stop all countries burning coal. That's day one. Agriculture, farting cows etc should be way down the list.

Here's a graphic produced by the NFU......

....pretty similar figures to yours.

 

[thesilentone]

Here's a graphic produced by the NFU......

....pretty similar figures to yours.

Interesting, however it can be interpreted in several ways. There are 26 million homes in the UK and 126,000 holdings, so on that basis Agriculture looks terrible. However, if sea-weed as a cattle feed, is a way of combating the ' eat less meat ' brigade, surely it is worth looking at ?

 

[deleted user 837354]

What is the environmental impact and footprint of harvesting millions of tonnes of seaweed?

 

[thesilentone]

What is the environmental impact and footprint of harvesting millions of tonnes of seaweed?

THE IMPACT ON OUR ENVIRONMENT


The potential ‘green’ impact of harvesting seaweed on current food production is profound.

Seaweeds are a highly renewable food resource. They can be grown and harvested all year round, in any marine environment (for any temperature, depth of water or geographical location there is a species of seaweed that can grow there). Production is low impact - seaweeds need no chemicals, fertilisers or pesticides, they require no deforestation or freshwater to grow.

They don’t deplete their own environment of minerals - as over-intensive farming on the soil does. In fact seaweeds actively improve the quality of the water. Brown seaweeds ‘fix’ the nitrogen content of their surrounding water - which is used as an environmentally friendly solution to nitrogen pollution from agricultural run-off.

As the problems associated with over-intensive agriculture are ever increasing, by promoting the consumption of nutritious seaweeds as part of a balanced diet, we can start to build part of an incredible environmental solution.

 

[deleted user 837354]

THE IMPACT ON OUR ENVIRONMENT


The potential ‘green’ impact of harvesting seaweed on current food production is profound.

Seaweeds are a highly renewable food resource. They can be grown and harvested all year round, in any marine environment (for any temperature, depth of water or geographical location there is a species of seaweed that can grow there). Production is low impact - seaweeds need no chemicals, fertilisers or pesticides, they require no deforestation or freshwater to grow.

They don’t deplete their own environment of minerals - as over-intensive farming on the soil does. In fact seaweeds actively improve the quality of the water. Brown seaweeds ‘fix’ the nitrogen content of their surrounding water - which is used as an environmentally friendly solution to nitrogen pollution from agricultural run-off.

As the problems associated with over-intensive agriculture are ever increasing, by promoting the consumption of nutritious seaweeds as part of a balanced diet, we can start to build part of an incredible environmental solution.

Sounds good. If you harvested from the right places, you would be reducing the nutrient content of the water and recovering them from rivers/estuaries etc.

 

[Tarw Coch]

So a 2% inclusion rate of seaweed in a cows diet will reduce methane emissions by 99%, sounds too good to be true, what is the cost of getting this seaweed to the cows, both monetarily and it’s environmental impact?

 

[deleted user 837354]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X18303126

Plenty of information from this study. Very interesting.

Basically-

Virtually unlimited area/volume to grow the stuff.

No real need for fertiliser as many parts of the coast are unfortunately loaded with the stuff anyway.

Creates new habitat for other marine life.

Low impact on environment and other considerations.


I am no seaweed agronomist but I do know that the structure, nutrient and physiology of seaweed is hugely different to terrestrial plants, and that they behave differently inside ruminants. I wonder what the relative cost of a tonne of dry matter vs nutrients obtained are?

 

[yellowbelly]

There are 26 million homes in the UK and 126,000 holdings, so on that basis Agriculture looks terrible.

Yes, as stand alone figures maybe - but bearing in mind that the farming figure is feeding those 26 million homes then obviously a large part of our emissions are attributable to them. We can make our figure very low, by stopping production of food, but then 26 million homes would have to import it all. I've no idea of the figures, but would hazzard a guess that by the time they'd added in all the extra transport the total emissions would be much higher.

 

[thesilentone]

Yes, as stand alone figures maybe - but bearing in mind that the farming figure is feeding those 26 million homes then obviously a large part of our emissions are attributable to them. We can make our figure very low, by stopping production of food, but then 26 million homes would have to import it all. I've no idea of the figures, but would hazzard a guess that by the time they'd added in all the extra transport the total emissions would be much higher.

The farming figure is feeding almost half those homes.

The interesting connection is to Dairy and Beef production, and methane emissions.

 

[yellowbelly]

The interesting connection is to Dairy and Beef production, and methane emissions.

I agree and I'm certainly in favour of the seaweed angle. Are any commercial companies getting dried seaweed production up and running?

2% inclusion to get a 99% reduction is a no brainer - there must be a catch somewhere

 

[thesilentone]

http://www.gpfeeds.co.uk/analysis/seaweed_meal.htm

http://www.npk.ltd.uk/seagain.htm

 

[spin cycle]

They argue emissions from cows (alone) contribute 4.4% to Climate Change, double the climate impact of aviation.

it's estimated that only 2% of the worlds population has ever flown though....in the uk 15% of the population are responsible for 70% or aviation emissions

 

[thesilentone]

it's estimated that only 2% of the worlds population has ever flown though....in the uk 15% of the population are responsible for 70% or aviation emissions

I assume the figure quoted is a Worldwide average, not exclusive to the UK only.

 

[spin cycle]

I assume the figure quoted is a Worldwide average, not exclusive to the UK only.

i think what i'm trying to say that although aviation emissions are half that of cows they are produced by a very small elite making the damage disproportionate

 

[Scribus]

No.

Actually looking at the main greenhouse gas emissions helps. Close to sixty percent of the sources are electricity generation and transport. Compared to around twelve percent from agriculture.

The solution is to massively curtail recreational air travel, and stop all countries burning coal. That's day one. Agriculture, farting cows etc should be way down the list.

All greenhouse gases are not equal though, methane rapidly breaks down in the atmosphere whereas CO2 does not

 

[thesilentone]

All greenhouse gases are not equal though, methane rapidly breaks down in the atmosphere whereas CO2 does not

If you class 9 years as ' rapidly breaks down in the atmosphere '

Methane is a very effective greenhouse gas. While its atmospheric concentration is much less than that of carbon dioxide, methane is 28 times more effective (averaged over 100 years) at trapping infrared radiation. The atmospheric residence time of methane is approximately 9 years.