Mom’s Soap Box

When I first saw this, I thought it was hilarious. Then I did some reading, and realized this is a real problem. A third of all methane emissions? unHoly cow!

Fish oils fed to flatulent cows could reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

See, it just sounds funny, feeding fish to cows to improve their farts. I’ve been using Omega 3 supplements for years now; I just never thought I’d be sharing dietary habits with the livestock.

Omega 3 fatty acids in fish oils have many documented benefits to humans including the reduction of cholesterol, but what of the benefits to animals and the environment in general? While assisting the heart and circulatory system in animals and improving the meat quality in cattle, it is also, according to researchers at the University College in Dublin, beneficial in reducing methane levels from flatulence when added to the diet of cattle.

Methane given off by farm animals is a major contributing factor to greenhouse gas levels emanating from the agricultural sector, prompting researchers at the University College in Dublin to conduct a study into adding fish oil to the feed of cattle. They have reported that by including 2% fish oil into the diet, a reduction in the amount of methane released by cattle through flatulence was achieved.

More than a third of all methane emissions, around 900 billion tons every year, are produced by methanogen bacteria that live in the digestive systems of ruminants such as cattle, sheep and goats. When calculated in volume, methane is a potent greenhouse gas, 20 times more powerful at trapping solar energy than carbon dioxide.

While the methane in cow farts is bad, the methane in their poop could be a good thing:

Livestock manure, left to decompose naturally, emits two particularly potent greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) – nitrous oxide and methane. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nitrous oxide warms the atmosphere 310 times more than carbon dioxide, methane does so 21 times more.

Converting livestock manure into a domestic renewable fuel source could lead to a significant reduction in GHGs and generate enough electricity to meet up to three per cent of North America’s entire consumption needs, according to research published in the Institute of Physics’ Environmental Research Letters.

The paper, ‘Cow Power: The Energy and Emissions Benefits of Converting Manure to Biogas’, has implications for all countries with livestock as it is the first attempt to outline a procedure for quantifying the national amount of renewable energy that herds of cattle and other livestock can generate and the concomitant GHG emission reductions.

Through anaerobic digestion, similar to the process by which you create compost, manure can be turned into energy-rich biogas, which standard microturbines can use to produce electricity. The hundreds of millions of livestock inhabiting the US could produce approximately 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power millions of homes and offices.

And, as manure left to decompose naturally has a very damaging effect on the environment, this new waste management system has a net potential GHG emissions reduction of 99 million metric tons, wiping out approximately four per cent of the country’s GHG emissions from electricity production.

The burning of biogas would lead to the emission of some CO2 but the output from biogas-burning plants would be less than that from, for example, coal.