Are There Sensible Options To Methane Emissions From Cattle?

Immediately is the 4th of July within the US. Across the nation individuals can be firing up their grills and consuming juicy hamburgers. Few party-goers, although, will take into consideration the methane emissions that outcome from huge herds of US manufacturing unit farmed-cattle.

Scientists have been attempting for years to search out simply the suitable components to scale back methane emissions from cattle. What — you don’t learn about cows and methane emissions? I’ve all the time been an advocate of slowing down science only a bit so common of us like us perceive the massive image. Then we will soak up the smaller particulars. So right here goes.

Cattle digest meals in another way than people do. They’ll eat meals comparable to grasses and hay, which transfer by way of their digestive system in a cycle referred to as the biogenic carbon cycle. This cycle is in fixed rotation, utilizing the least power attainable. Methane molecules are produced because the rotation takes place. The methane is belched out the entrance finish of the animal and is a by-product of the manure they excrete.

Within the easiest phrases, methane emissions are the gases produced by ruminate animals comparable to cattle as they burp and poop.

We now know that the overproduction of cattle and the methane emissions they produce are a significant issue for the planet. Methane is a potent greenhouse gasoline (GHG) with a world warming potential 21 to 26 instances better than carbon dioxide (CO₂). It’s a big driver of local weather change.

To stop worsening and probably irreversible results of local weather change, the world’s common temperature mustn’t exceed that of preindustrial instances by greater than 1.5 levels Celsius (2.7 levels Fahrenheit). Quickly lowering methane emissions from power, agriculture, and waste is thought to be a only technique to maintain the purpose of limiting world warming to 1.5˚C inside attain. It can additionally add in different advantages like enhancing public well being and making agriculture extra productive.

Sources of GHG from livestock manufacturing embody methane emissions, manure, feed manufacturing, land use change, power, and processing. There have been many promising methods for mitigating methane emissions (enteric CH₄) throughout varied ruminant livestock species — cows, sheep, and goats.

Enteric CH₄ contains 17% of world CH₄ emissions and three.3% of whole GHG emissions. In 2021 the World Methane Pledge impressed multiple hundred and fifty nations to scale back world methane (CH₄) emissions by at the least 30% of the earlier 12 months’s ranges with a 2030 goal.

The only pathway to that purpose could be for people to cease consuming beef merchandise; I haven’t had pink meat since 1980. However that’s unlikely for the mass inhabitants. So, if manufacturing unit farms scale back enteric CH₄ emissions from ruminant livestock, it may actually be a key intervention to change the GHG emissions related to meals manufacturing.

Options Begin with the Meals That Cows Eat

Cows’ pure weight loss plan consists primarily of grasses, legumes, alfalfa, clover, and hay. They’re grazing animals, in any case. The typical cow eats 2% of their physique weight a day, which averages out to 24-26 kilos of meals.

However cows on manufacturing unit farms are fed cheap and unsustainable animal feed, comparable to corn and soy — it’s all concerning the income, silly, not the planet. Dried distillers grain (DDG) has grow to be the primary supply of protein utilized in cattle feedlots.

DDG is a co-product of the dry-grind gas ethanol manufacturing course of. The vast majority of US ethanol manufacturing is from dry-grind expertise during which the entire corn kernel is floor and blended with water and enzymes. The mash is cooked to liquefy the starch additional and cooled. Then it’s blended with extra enzymes to transform the remaining sugar polymers to glucose earlier than fermenting to ethanol. The elements of the kernel not fermented embody the germ, fiber, and protein and are concentrated within the DDG which can be produced as co-products.

Altering the composition of DDG animal feed may help to unravel the issue of methane emissions.

What would occur if manufacturing unit farmers added entire cottonseed to cattle feedstocks? One research this 12 months by South American researchers evaluates the consequences of entire cottonseed (WCS) supplementation on CH₄, dry matter consumption (DMI), and efficiency in beef heifers fed low-quality forage diets. Outcomes demonstrated that WCS supplementation lowered CH₄ emissions by 29% (g/day) and CH₄ yield by 22% (share of gross power consumption) in comparison with a forage-only weight loss plan. Methane emissions reductions of practically one-third? That’s fairly good, proper?

Feed components containing bromoform (CHBr3) confirmed promise in a separate 2025 research. Bromoform produced minimal impression on animal manufacturing parameters. RuMin 8™ is a patented, distinctive mix of extremely soluble dairy sugars and natural acids that improve microbial exercise enhancing power and protein availability in ruminants. Its components are usually dried whey product, malic acid, soy flour, dried corn syrup, maltodextrins, dextrose, vegetable fats, and synthetic taste. The Rumin8 oil therapy within the research led to a big discount in methane emissions, with a ≈95.0% lower in methane manufacturing, yield, and depth — with none adverse results on the animals’ development or their digestive well being.

Does Treating the Manure Ponds Assist Scale back Methane Emissions?

As soon as cows are milked, their sheds are hosed down to scrub away cow manure into giant human-made ponds, referred to as lagoons. In New Zealand, native scientists tried to recycle the water within the lagoons with the addition of polyferric sulfate. That’s a chemical that’s been broadly utilized in wastewater therapy to separate liquids from solids.

They got here up with some very fascinating outcomes.

Including polyferric sulfate decreased methane emissions from the wastewater by greater than 90%. As described in a Bloomberg exposé, the outcome was a pointy drop within the highly effective GHG that cattle farmers have been attempting to tame for years.

How did this occur? Scientists Keith Cameron and Hong Di modified the lagoon’s stability in favor of sulfate-reducing microorganisms. Sulfate discount is a kind of anaerobic respiration, and it began to outcompete methanogens within the lagoons. Methanogens generate methane, are plentiful in cow poop, and develop significantly in effluent ponds.

The method that Cameron and Di created is sort of straightforward to observe. To deal with a lagoon stuffed with cow poop, the pond liquid is sucked right into a pump on a truck. It strikes by way of a manifold, the place it’s blended with polyferric sulfate and sulfuric acid. When that half is completed, the slurry is deposited again within the lagoon. The method usually takes just a few hours and is repeated each six to eight weeks.

This new methane emissions answer is being disseminated in a New Zealand pilot program to about 250 farms beneath the identify EcoPond.

Whereas the preliminary pilot is concentrated on farms elevating cows, the method has “broad applicability throughout varied methanogenic environments — comparable to rice paddies, wetlands and comparable programs,” says Marcelo Mena, chief govt officer on the World Methane Hub. The Hub is constructing a world community of scientists, consultants, activists, policymakers, and philanthropists to push towards the one purpose of mitigating methane.