[ygjb]

This is a potential solution, but the problem isn't solved until the market actually adopts it.

Without a financial incentive to follow through (for example, a carbon tax on gassy animals) to offset the added cost of feed supplements, then most farms won't see the business justification (carbon footprint is largely externalized).

[atlasy1]

Sorry to double post this but you can think of it as being similar to a human taking a cheap charcoal tablet with their food to reduce flatulance.

Only a small part of the animals feed needs to be seaweed and thankfully it is one of the easiest and fastest growing organisms on the planet. So it’s extremely cheap for the industry to adopt compared to losses related to carbon taxes and loss of market share.

[ygjb]

That means absolutely nothing until the majority of cattle farms incorporate the supplement into their operations.

Knowing a potential solution is not the same as solving a problem, unless you are performing an academic exercise.

[atlasy1]

A little difficult to parse your argument. It is the lack of implementation of the cheap solution that you are worried about and raising as a problem.

Do not worry.

When enough pressure is applied on the farmers thanks to people like you , the solution (seaweed) we have found will be implemented. We have already done the difficult part and found a solution to the problem.

[ygjb]

And I am sure that all of the fat people (myself included) are thrilled that a thermodynamic approach to weight loss is a proven solution, despite the fact that I have not had much success applying it.

I am also strongly reassured that XSS is a solved problem when using content security, and climate change has been solved by mass reforestation efforts.

The difficult part of a technical solution is not inventing it (although those are rightfully hard problems); the real challenge is in driving adoption of the solution.

The industry will push back on this solution for a broad range of reasons:

1. Cost - what is the cost of both the supplement and the labour required to administer it, or the differential on unfortified vs. fortified feeds.

2. Marketing - how will you communicate to folks that they should do this?

3. Customer Satisfication - does the supplement meaningfully affect any of the metrics for customer satisfaction (flavour, texture, etc of the meat).

4. Availability - retooling and spinning up the aquaculture required to produce the supplements

5. Viability - what is the ecological impact of the proposed seaweed solution, and is it a net positive.

I spent a chunk of my career as a researcher, developing protoypes and proof of concept stuff. One of the greatest things of that time in my career was developing something to 80% and throwing it over the fence, which let me ignore all of that hard work and call my project a win. One of the worst things is that out of that multi-year period of experimentation almost none of the work I did actually yielded unique products or improvements (although the tools I built did drive improvements to address issues and flaws found).

Assuming that you did the research, your work was definitely successful in finding a solution. You have not solved the problem, and the hard work is very much ahead.

[atlasy1]

You are certainly putting in a lot of effort in this discussion and I thank you for that. I would prefer a discussion done in good faith however.

I say that only as it seems you have added paragraphs in all of your previous comments to retroactively protect yourself from points I later raised in my replies and you also seem to have deleted your paragraph that enough seaweed was not being produced and so you believe the problem is not solved.

Seaweed production is in line with current demand. When the market places enough pressure on Farmers to adopt the solution then seaweed production will naturally increase. Seaweed is one of the easiest and fastest growing organisms in the world.

Your most recent arguments regarding Marketing etc being a problem. You are scraping the barrel now looking for problems.

[ygjb]

I haven't added or edited anything but spelling errors. It was another commenter who raised concern about scaling production, my point was that the viability of this as method for methane reduction also needed to determine if the aquaculture needed to produce the seaweed would be a net benefit from a climate change perspective.