I've also heard about a type of seaweed, an algae species, that Irish cattle owners had been supplementing their pasture feed with for centuries (largely because there's not a ton of pasture land on a relatively small island). Scientists researching this have found that it cuts down on "methane emissions" from cows by something like 95%, and the algae isn't difficult to potentially mariculture, meaning it could be introduced to cattle feed on a broader scale, and/or some clever chemist could figure out what the active ingredient is and reproduce it, though I've often felt that the most efficient, most effective way to put an "active ingredient" to work is by using the entire product, all those factors in conjunction. :)
Yes, of course chemical companies are always looking for a way to control the market. In the meantime, seaweed is being harvested and fed to cattle. Despite concerns that methane molecules are much bigger than CO2 (and1/1000th the tons of CO2), there was nearly no increase in atmospheric methane when the world cattle population tripled thanks to steadfast bacteria and archaea. People estimated average methane release per cow and multiplied by the number of dairy and beef cattle to get an enormous number without collecting the data of methane measurements in the field, called “ground truthing.”
I've also heard about a type of seaweed, an algae species, that Irish cattle owners had been supplementing their pasture feed with for centuries (largely because there's not a ton of pasture land on a relatively small island). Scientists researching this have found that it cuts down on "methane emissions" from cows by something like 95%, and the algae isn't difficult to potentially mariculture, meaning it could be introduced to cattle feed on a broader scale, and/or some clever chemist could figure out what the active ingredient is and reproduce it, though I've often felt that the most efficient, most effective way to put an "active ingredient" to work is by using the entire product, all those factors in conjunction. :)
Yes, of course chemical companies are always looking for a way to control the market. In the meantime, seaweed is being harvested and fed to cattle. Despite concerns that methane molecules are much bigger than CO2 (and1/1000th the tons of CO2), there was nearly no increase in atmospheric methane when the world cattle population tripled thanks to steadfast bacteria and archaea. People estimated average methane release per cow and multiplied by the number of dairy and beef cattle to get an enormous number without collecting the data of methane measurements in the field, called “ground truthing.”