[mazsa]

FYI: "Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions from their burps, research finds" https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-metha...

[hannob]

I've read this cows/seaweed story now often enough that I looked into it. It seems it's all based on a study on 12 cows performed by UC Davis [1].

That is... not exactly confidence inspiring. It may very well be a statistical fluke and the reality is much less reassuring.

Not saying we shouldn't research in that direction, but this looks way too early to be confident in it.

[1] https://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/news/research-led-ermias-k...

[mazsa]

I don't want to prevent you from testing on a larger sample:)

[kasey_junk]

But it does hardly anything got the carbon costs of their feed.

[mazsa]

"hardly anything" = 80% of feed crops, foregone absorption of greenhouse gases (i.e. 32% of all of their carbon costs, cf. https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/54D29... )

[chosenbreed37]

Is the sourcing of seaweed in sufficient quantities free of cost?

[philipkglass]

The active anti-methane compound from seaweed is likely bromoform:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10811-016-0830-7

It would be a cheap food supplement since the methane inhibition required only about 2% seaweed in cattle food, which in turn implies a bromoform feed content of only about 35 parts per million. Though no doubt some farmers would prefer to be able to say that they add seaweed rather than a particular chemical to their cattle feed.

[mazsa]

of course nothing is free but they think it may be feasible: https://www.symbrosiasolutions.com/team