Are your Pets Farts destroying our environment?

Getting all cats and dogs neutered will be more effective.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tempus @ Feb 23 2007, 11:00 AM) [snapback]395185[/snapback]</div>

Ok, obviously posted in mockery, but there is a significant point regarding carbon offset companies such as Terrapass. Most of them are "green tag" retailers, purchasing renewable energy certificates from green electricity production, and reselling them to consumers. My take on it (from a previous extensive thread on Terrapass) is that the act of purchasing from a green tag retailer does not in fact result in any carbon reduction. It is best viewed as a modest charitable donation toward green energy rather than the purchase of a quantitative amount of carbon offset. So, mockery aside, Terrapass and similar "green tag" retailers do not provide a cheap and easy way to offset your carbon production. A fortiori for this joke site.

Plus, they need to size them by the weight of the dog, as Terrapass does for cars, otherwise you're overpaying for your chihuahua and underpaying for your doberman.

 

The methane should be piped through a mini GTL processing plant. Farts in synfuel out. These should be shoved up the arse of ever cow on the planet. Think of the amount of fuel it would produce!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Feb 23 2007, 12:09 PM) [snapback]395286[/snapback]</div>

Joking aside, there is a lot of energy in cow manure that is unrealized. Instead the methane is allowed to dissipate into the atmosphere, where it is a stronger GHG than CO2. There are a few power plants that are run entirely by cow manure (some that are connected to ethanol-production plants which provide feedstock to the cattle, as I mentioned in another thread). Not using the methane from manure is like flaring natural gas at an oil well.

But worrying about your pets contribution to AGW is like talking about a scratch on a hand that's been amputated. There's a serious problem here, but it's not the pet, or the pet's fault. It's the big house the pet lives in that's heated with natural gas, cooled with coal-powered electricity and built with massive amounts of wood waste and covered in petroleum-based carpeting, stain and paint. I'm not saying we should live in caves, but we need to address our daily lives and make sure it's sustainable.

 

I wonder if grass fed beef fart less or if their farts contain less methane due to their food composition.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Feb 23 2007, 01:44 PM) [snapback]395312[/snapback]</div>

That's an excellent question and set me back on my heels. I'm having a tough time finding any definitive source, but my conclusions are that a) grass-fed beef produces more methane, b) that's because a higher fraction of the diet is fiber and lignin whose fermentation produces more methane, but c) the additional amount appears small (on the order of 10-20% more), and d) this does not include the incremental methane produced by the dung.

I'll look into this further as I find the time this weekend. Higher methane production beef produced from natural forage is something I did not expect or account for when promoting grass-fed beef. Given the higher GHG potency of methane, even a small discrepancy may be worth factoring in.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Feb 23 2007, 11:23 AM) [snapback]395293[/snapback]</div>

Ag processes account for about 18% of human GHG production. Cattle methane is substantial. Here in CO there's a farm that is now piping methane (actually biogas, which has a substantial amount of CO2 in it) directly into the NG pipeline. Most, if not all, of it is consumed by a NG peaking plant. A lot of feed lots are installing digesters to produce electricity via micro turbines. It lowers the operational costs of the facility and offsets some fossil fuel AND reduces methane emissions. Panda Energy (I think that's their name) operates 3 big ethanol plants with heat generated by manure from the surrounding areas.

 

I've heard that methane is something like 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. As the permafrost melts, it will release vast quantities of methane, meaning all this CO2 is just a trigger mechanism...


note: edited to remove a dumb joke and add a thoughtful, germane comment instead.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Feb 23 2007, 04:21 PM) [snapback]395414[/snapback]</div>

Chogan, I haven't had a stitch of meat for the last 20 or so years so when you were promoting grass fed beef, I wasn't paying much attention. I just poked around a bit now. I know how thoroughly you research things so you probably already know all of this, but I thought I should summarize what I've found just in case you didn't locate an appropriate source.

At the very least, you're doing a very humane thing for the cows. It's very hard for cows to digest the starchy corn that they're typically fed. The rumen can get blocked up and place pressure on their lungs which has to be relieved by jamming a hose down their throat, or they die. It seems that you're preventing health problems of your own by ingesting grass fed beef over corn fed varities. The grass fed beef contains much less overall fat (both saturated and unsaturated) more vitamins, minerals, flavonoids, and omega-3 fatty acids. The animal is also allowed to free range, which may help to prevent overuse of antibiotics.

On to the environment concerning corn fed cows. "A typical steer will in effect consume 284 gallons of oil in his lifetime, basically transforming what was once a solar-powered ruminant into the very last thing we need: another fossil-fuel machine. In addition to consuming less energy, grass-fed beef has another environmental advantage - it is far less polluting. The animals' wastes drop onto the land, becoming nutrients for the next cycle of crops. In feedlots and other forms of factory farming, however, the animals' wastes build up in enormous quantities, becoming a staggering source of water and air pollution." This was a quote from a website that I located. None of this takes into consideration the tremendous amount of water required for the irrigation of corn that has to be produced for the cow's corn feed and all the chemicals required to maintain a healthy crop, an even greater benefit to the environment.

The only down side to the environment is the vast amount of land (and damage to the land) that's required for free range feeding. I haven't looked into it but I'm wondering if we converted all agricultural corn fields that are currently maintained to grow cow feed into grazing lands, maybe this consequence can be somewhat offset.

This from an environmental website so take it with a grain of salt....."Grazing ruminants do release methane into the atmosphere, and methane is one of the two major elements that contribute to global warming. Yet the grassy pastures on which they roam are 50 percent more effective than cultivated soils at removing carbon — the other element of global warming — from the atmosphere. The USDA Conservation Reserve Program has shown that when cultivated soils are returned to pasture, they gain an average of one-half ton of carbon per acre per year for the first five years after grassland restoration. As we combat global warming, it might actually be beneficial to return lands currently used for row-cropping to pasture!"

Here's a link concerning methane production corresponding with various diets. I don't think it's exactly what you're looking for but it's all I could find.
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:NCyzfD...lient=firefox-a

You have quite a puzzle on your hands. You'll have to take into consideration pollution yields, water use for corn irrigation, fuel used for transport of the feed and the cultivation of the corn, energy utilized for the production of all of the farming equipment that's required to raise the corn and bring it to market, chemicals saved from implementing free range feeding. I could go on ad naseum. I'm not inclined to crunch all of these numbers but for the big picture, it seems evident that grass fed beef is a much more environmentally sound method over corn fed beef, based on all of the components of the equation. The only other option to getting greener would be to reduce your consumption of this meat. For some, this simply isn't a viable option. They just love it too much.

*edit*

I screwed up. You're just concerned about GH gases. Some of the parts of the equation above don't apply but many others can be applied that do such as fuel saved from the diminished production of chemicals required to grow corn feed, fuel used to process the consolidate waste from a traditional cow farm, fuel used to clean up the pollution resulting from traditional cow farms.....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Feb 23 2007, 03:51 PM) [snapback]395498[/snapback]</div>

The silver lining is that methane's live time in the atmosphere is considerably shorter than CO2's. I believe that it breaks down into CO2 and H2O. It's all probability, of course, for how long an individual molecule will last but you get the idea.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Feb 23 2007, 05:32 PM) [snapback]395544[/snapback]</div>

Actually, many of these feedlots are turning all of this wasting into fertilizer and electricity. Because the waste is so concentrated it's economical to collect it and put it in anerobic digesters, where bacteria produce methane that is captured and combusted in micro turbines to produce heat and electricity. The remaining material is removed and is, apparently, a high quality fertilizer.

So there is a silver lining. I'm no fan of them but they're at leasty putting A-1 on the sh*te sandwich that they've made.

 

Well, he's only 55 lbs and has really tiny feet.

And he warms up my spot of the bed so I don't need to put the heat on. When I come to bed he gets up and gives me the warm place. What a little gentleman. He also saves energy by being my burglar alarm. So I don't need to run the heater or install a burglar alarm to run 24 hours a day. Pretty good trade off.

Besides I fart a lot more than he does.

 

THe title of this thread has me LMAO! :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(BORNGEARHEAD @ Feb 24 2007, 08:28 PM) [snapback]395979[/snapback]</div>

Me too! I never even hear my kitties fart. Nor my bunny. I think my husband makes up for it though.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Feb 24 2007, 07:48 PM) [snapback]395987[/snapback]</div>

You mean he doesn't blame them?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Feb 23 2007, 01:44 PM) [snapback]395312[/snapback]</div>

Turns out there's an entire scholarly literature on this and on reducing methane emissions from cattle. I'm sure I now know more about cow burps than I ever wanted to, but I'm nowhere near a quantitative answer to the question. Here's a brief summary, as much for my benefit as anyone elses.

Some sources:

This is clearly an issue for New Zealand, as they have a lot of ruminants. They already have a research program in place to reduce ruminant methan emissions by 20% by 2012. This gives a decent overview of the biology of it. As it turns out, the microbes that break up the cellulose generate hydrogen gas, and it's an entirely different set of microbes that take the H2 gas and use it to generate methane. So, some of the strategies are oriented toward suppressing that second set of microbes. Anyway, this is a good readable overview.

http://www.rsnz.org/advisory/nz_climate/cl...wk01/joblin.php

Virtually everyone agrees that you get more methane from lower-quality feed, and that supplementing the diet with higher quality feed (e.g., grain) reduces methane per pound of output. How much more, the numbers vary. This article was an excellent summary of the underlying economics.

Notably, regarding the other end of the feed cycle, it states that only the anearobic decomposition of manure generates significant methane. In other words, cow flop out in the field doesn't generate significant methane, it's only when its concentrated in tanks and lagoons (under anaerobic conditions) that you get methane out of it. So, if true, pastured beef would appear to come ahead on the methane generated from the waste, compared to those CAFOs that don't burn off or otherwise use the methane generated by the anaerobic decomposition of the waste.

http://www.organicagcentre.ca/ResearchData..._cowmethane.asp

Here it states that 25% of the energy value of the forage is wasted as methane, so that suppressing methane production is important for efficiency of production.

http://agnews.tamu.edu/stories/ANSC/methane.htm

These guys, by contrast, using a novel measurement technique, say that 8% of the value of raw forage versus 2% of the value of grain forage is converted to methane.

http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/77/6/1392.pdf


The US EPA has addressed the issue. Here's a very readabl overview with data on per-animal production of methane, from the US EPA.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/pdfs/ffa.pdf

So, I still have no answers even for the most basic question, let alone the broad-ranging question posed by SSimon. All I know now is that a) it's been well, well researched, b) suppression of methane production by ruminants is part of New Zealand's overall GHG policy, c) everyone agrees that lower-quality forage leads to more methane, d) there are numerous potential offsets (carbon sequestration in pasture as opposed to crop land, reduced methane from decomposition of wasted deposited in fields as opposed to collected in lagoons), so that finally, e) how much more or less net methane for pastured versus CAFO beef appears subject to significant uncertainty.

At this point, I doubt that I will be able to quantify it.

Basically, from SSimon's comments, I now get the feeling that I'm on the slippery slope. Buying a Prius meant that I figured out that what I really wanted was an EV. The Prius was a good first step. By analogy, buying grass-fed beef is leading me to understand that what I really want is a vegetarian diet. I don't have either, but at least I'm aware of the lack.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Feb 24 2007, 08:52 PM) [snapback]395989[/snapback]</div>

No, sometimes he tries to blame me! One time we were in a store when we were contemplating redoing our kitchen that's about 3 decades old. We were in one of those kitchen model rooms. I turn to say something to him and he's gone. It's at this point that I'm standing in the room and smell something nasty (like his fart). I turn to walk out to go find him and in walks a stranger seeing only me and smelling something very foul! That time, he didn't have to be there to blame me for his fart, know what I'm saying?!?!? He's a stinker.....in more ways than one, I guess!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Feb 25 2007, 09:51 AM) [snapback]396165[/snapback]</div>

I'm going through this too. I spent about one month researching biodiesel in lieu of the hybrid technology and found hybrid technology to be far better for the overall environment so I went with that choice. Now I too see that I really want an EV. I take comfort that my options are completely lacking in this area, unless I had a significant amount of extra money to spend. So, I'm doing the best for the environment that I can with the options available to me. It's unfortunate that we're forced to have to reconcile things in this manner.

Concerning your cows, I know you seem to be very focused on GW, but water is another resource that's in peril from both a pollution and scarcity point of view. At least your choice for free range meat reduces impact on this resource. It's really as important an issue as GW. Try to take comfort with that, Chogan.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Feb 24 2007, 11:42 AM) [snapback]395910[/snapback]</div>

And you wondered (in another thread) where all the good men were?! :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Feb 23 2007, 06:32 PM) [snapback]395544[/snapback]</div>

In your and Chogan's research, have you found any evidence supporting my co-worker's claim that feedlots consume more carbonated water (to relieve stomach gas) than does the entire soft-beverage industry? This could be another source of CO2.

Traditionally this is done in different environments - more fertile land/climate is used for corn, soybeans, cotton crops (I think, not from the south so I may be wrong), less fertile land/climate used for wheat, barley, oats, more arid areas or hard-to-plow areas (rocky, hilly) used for grazing. Damage to the land is much less under grazing than in grains, that's one reason it can be done in more marginal areas. Acres/cow for grazing depends a lot on the local environment, corn is only grown in good environments, so it's more of a constant. Not sure how many acres of either are needed per cow, but it should be possible to determine an average offset of land by shifting to range-fed, but it wouldn't be the same plots of land. Grazing would encroach into traditional wheat areas which would then encroach into corn areas, for example.

On a somewhat related note, I have heard that the CRP (conservation reserve? program - the set-aside program for farmer's land) is not accepting more land, and there is no punishment if a farmer takes land out of CRP, primarily because of the increased demand for corn for ethanol.