Very instructive piece here about how it is possible to decrease carbon emissions up to 30% by simply tweaking the inputs slightly.
This has relevance to any manufacturer or energy producer who too often complain about the price of the inputs instead of concentrating on the price of the outputs. Firstly let's define the problem. It smells funny, but it makes sense:
..the United Nations called livestock one of the most serious near-term threats to the global climate. In a 2006 report that looked at the environmental impact of cows worldwide, including forest-clearing activity to create pasture land, it estimated that cows might be more dangerous to Earth’s atmosphere than trucks and cars combined.
Frank Mitloehner, a University of California, Davis, professor who places cows in air-tight tent enclosures and measures what he calls their “eruptions,” says the average cow expels — through burps mostly, but some flatulence — 200 to 400 pounds of methane a year.
We don't know how many cows there are in the world, but this a ton of CO2. Or many millions of tonnes actually. But the solution is at hand:
A potential solution was offered by Groupe Danone, the French makers of Dannon yogurt and Evian bottled water,..... Scientists working with Groupe Danone had been studying why their cows were healthier and produced more milk in the spring. The answer, the scientists determined, was that spring grasses are high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which may help the cow’s digestive tract operate smoothly.
When the scientists began putting high concentrations of Omega-3 back into the cows’ food year-round, the animals were more robust, their digestive tract functioned better and they produced less methane.
The new feed is used at 600 farms in France, said Julia Laurain, a representative of Valorex SAS, a French company that makes the feed additives and that is working with Stonyfield Farm to bring the program to the United States.
A reason farmers like corn and soy is that those crops are a plentiful, cheap source of energy and protein — which may lead some to resist replacing them. But Ms. Laurain said flax cost less than soy, although grain prices can fluctuate.
How often do we have to say it? Saving energy is neither complicated or expensive. Just use less. And save more. It does demand new thinking. Creating new options as opposed to catering to old ideas. Back to, or is that behind, the cows:
The methane-reduction results have been far more significant in France than in the Vermont pilot — about 30 percent — because the feed is distributed there not just to organic farms, where the animals already eat grass for at least half the year, but also to big industrial farms.
A 30 percent drop in bovine emissions would be a giant step forward which would be better for everyone on two legs. And four:
Mr. Choiniere said that regardless of how the tests turned out, he planned to stick with the new feeding system.
“They are healthier and happier,” he said of his cows, “and that’s what I really care about.
