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hello and welcome to Technically Speaking where scientists and engineers come together to chat about a common interest share knowledge and satisfy some curiosity I'm Antonia and I'm joined by Ellie and Jasmin to talk about methane emissions from cattle and methods that could reduce the impact on global warming So to start with Ellie you've got a degree in zoology but have you thought much about the emissions of cattle um not not especially in terms of zoology I think my zoology was much more
wildlife based There was a degree uh at my university called animal science which I think focused a lot more on that But having said that cow burps cow farts they are a pretty hot topic in the world of global warming climate crisis all of that stuff And uh I've cut down my meat consumption because of the cows and the methane and the global warming So maybe I'm thinking about it much more than I realize just not in a academic point of view And also got to recognize the pun
hot topic on global warming That was unintentional but I'll take it But um yeah I've also tried to eat less meat I've been following the idea of meat as a treat instead of it being a standard component in every single meal Moving on to resident vegetarian Jasmine Yeah Or pescatarian I should say On on occasion pescatarian when I'm forced to eat it by my parents I I know that feeling too They don't understand the concept of vegetarianism No But anyway back onto your research
work You've looked at how the oil and gas industry could reduce their methane emissions Did you also do any research on the emissions from cows uh me personally no But in the general methane area um agriculture is a really big area especially with livestock so cows sheep pigs etc In some places it's agriculture that's a much bigger source of methane than oil and gas So there are like a number of countries who have made pledges to cut down their methane emissions and for them it will mean
targeting agriculture All right I hadn't really thought about it because most people talk about carbon dioxide or carbon emissions Yeah And forgetting about the other greenhouse gases that are human caused but human caused in the way that we raise livestock Yeah So I heard a fact that a cow emits about 100 kilos of methane per year Is that a lot you know it feels like it's a lot I mean for a cow for a animal like the size of a cow uh it's a pretty big num number
Annoyingly there's no real figures of how much methane humans emit from farts and burp so we can't do a comparison with a human Yeah 100 kg of methane per year per cow Think of about how many cows there are in the UK and then al also other countries And then also factor in the fact that methane is a really potent greenhouse gas So over a 100year time frame methane is around 30 times stronger than carbon dioxide And over a shorter time frame i.e 20 years it's around 80 times stronger So yeah in
terms of CO2 equivalents it's a lot It adds up There must be enough cows or at least enough ruminants the animals that produce methane Yeah they add up to again rough estimate between 11 and 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions Yep they do indeed Yeah In the UK agricultural methane is actually the biggest source of methane from cattle alone It's about four times higher than like manure management So like cows farts and burps methane is four times higher than like methane from basically
manure and that degrading The cows can't help farting burping Okay we can't No I mean there's like over a billion cows in the world easily and they're just doing it as part of their digestion They can't actually like reduce their own farts and burps themselves You should try and hold it in I'm sure if you try and hold it in one end it's going to come out the other Yeah But basically they just eat a load of grass and they have a fourchambered stomach and like they do a lot of
ruminating and a lot of fermentation and that just produces gas naturally So yes they do produce a lot of methane but I was going to say it's not their fault but it is their fault But they can't do anything about it Yeah It's not a process But we could do something about it as humans Yeah I mean most of the cows presumably are farmed like for livestock Yeah it's our fault that there are so many Yes pretty much No it might sound a little weird but there's a feed additive
that could reduce methane emissions but there was also a weird conspiracy theory around it Did you hear about this with Bova oh is this the L pack people the Ara people yeah the Ara one I think people got the wrong end of the stick didn't they really But the idea was that they were adding this additive to cow feed called like bover or something They sort of announced that they were going to be adding this and then people sort of panicked and then were like "Oh my
god it's going to ruin everything and we're going to become very ill from eating all this and we're not going to buy alla products because it's got this
bov in it." When in reality I think there was like nothing wrong with bova Like it wasn't detrimental to human health in any way No Oh and the thing is the additive it gets fully digested so none of it I would actually like pass on in the meat or the milk from the cows But also it's being used in countries outside the UK And it's been used for quite a while And there's been no impacts found so far from using it I think it's people just finding out that um can we call it big cattle or big
dairy big cattle Yeah Big Gal were like triing a new chemical and then people freaked out about new chemicals in their food Yeah they don't like chemicals but they also got a hold of the chemical safety data sheet It does say this is corrosive to humans but that was because it was the data sheet for anyone handling the chemical which is different when it gets digested by a cow Yeah But also like a lot of stuff is corrosive to humans Like technically lemon juice and vinegar is corrosive to humans
That's the thing I think people read stuff like that who maybe don't necessarily have a science understanding and then sort of it immediately goes from 0 to 100 in like panic And there apparently there were like videos of people like pouring milk dramatically down sinks and stuff being like we're going to boycott this substance And it's a shame because I feel like that's the opposite of a boycott cuz they've they've already bought the product Yeah It's just wasteful then I could have
drunk that milk Didn't also Bill Gates got dragged into it as well didn't he cuz he's like invested in some sort of not bo but like a startup designed to do like a similar thing to like cut methane emissions in cows and then he was like dragged into it And I think because people have a thing about Bill Gates it then kind of melded together that people had a even more of an excuse to get mad about chemicals in their food and also Bill Gates is I don't know making
trackers in our drinks allegedly but I don't think he's interested in that at all I think it's just one of those things where it's like becomes a bit of a pileon doesn't it as soon as like this one excuse for the Facebook warriors to come out in force There's another food additive that does a similar job which is seaweed Would people oppose that as much because it's natural well there was a trial in Sweden um they were selling reduced methane beef and I believe the
cows were fed seaweed as a supplement so that they would have lower methane And it was really successful and it sold out in the trial that they ran in 2022 So from that example I would say probably a lot less resistance cuz it's seaweed People know what it is and also people eat seaweed Yeah I feel like that's better for some reason Like an unknown mystery chemical is like automatically more scary than just cows eating seaweed to reduce methane Like that sounds fine
to me Not that the other one doesn't but you know what I mean like it's more palatable I would eat seaweed to reduce my methane emissions I will say that the reason why seaweed works in terms of reducing methane being produced by cows and other ruminants is um they basically don't know They just know it works Oh Oh they don't know how No they just know it works I love stuff like that where it's like we don't know how this is working but we're doing it anyway cuz we're getting good results
Yep Pretty much Yeah I suppose that they're not seeing any side effects though cuz otherwise they would probably be concerned Yeah but this is the Bill Gates thing again because his company the one he did actually invest in is a seaweed company for cows So maybe we have him to thank for this uh trial I think there were also scientists who found which particular breed of seaweed it was cuz they reported it has a 60% reduction in methane emissions So I wonder if that led to the startup or you
know they picked up the research and carried on Yeah it could be Also the startup is called Ruminate with an eight Of course of course Of course it is Got to get more puns in I think like it's weird isn't it seaweed If that's so good at reducing methane why is that not the standard across the UK or the world or wherever this study was done is it being adopted by like more farmers more countries so while there's been no negative side effects to the animals it's because um so in seaweed broomemide
or like basically broo and brooch methane in the seaweed because of that and the possibility of that getting into the milk and the meat There's some like regulatory concerns around those chemicals Is that bad if I was to eat broomemide milk don't know is the answer people eat seaweed It'll just be like a slightly elevated concentration if you were to get those chemicals from meat and dairy versus just eating seaweed alone Yeah they have in some trials found traces in milk and
in urine from cows but they've not found any impact on the meat quality That sounds good Yeah the main concern is just around how what to do with the fact that you do get those broine chemicals passing through the digestion and ending up in the milk and the meat and whether or not that's going to be of concern to human health So natural is not always better Well it depends on the chemical and what you're concerned about Yeah I think when we were looking at this we
also read that it was harder to produce a seaweed on a mass scale So there's also that challenge Oh that makes sense Why then getting the seaweed is a big barrier then presumably or like being able to store it or ship it or do whatever they've got to do to get it out of the sea Also all the extra demand for seaweed Yeah Does that mean we're going to wreck the sea now we're aiming to reduce cow burps but we've inadvertently destroyed the marine ecosystem instead
to have seaweed farms And also seaweed is a massive like carbon sink Like kelp is like a huge I don't know what you call it like a forest an underwater forest essentially Doesn't get the credit it deserves Those damn trees taking all the glory But big it up for seaweed Yeah So those are like things that you can feed to cows or ways that you can change the diet of cows to basically make them less gassy But something that you can also do is an active area of research is selective breeding to have
lower methane cows but also sheep So within species there is a natural variation the amount of methane that is produced I'm pretty sure it also applies to humans There are definitely people who are more gasoline than others So for sheep and cows they have identified specific genes that um enable them to be able to breed cows and sheep that do have lower methane emissions And they have found that after three generations there's about 10% reduction in methane per kilogram of animal I was
actually interviewed by ATV The interview was never aired but uh yeah there's a cow born up in Scotland She is the believe she's the 16th generation of cows that been born to have lowerane Her name is Hilda How long did it take them to get to Hilda if she's 16th generation Um you can't be that A cow's breed fairly like quickly I mean definitely not as long it would take to get to 16th generation for humans That's for sure Well cows have what like one calf a year
probably two calves a year Doesn't take very long for them to become adult cows I reckon it's less than 16 years That's me speculating If it's like this special program they could be IVFing cows which would be a lot faster Yeah they have been using IVF cuz that's how Hilda was conceived So cuz they use IVF she was conceived about 8 months quicker How are they deciding which cows are less gassy to selectively breed them like are they like measuring the cow farts or is this
like a breed that's already less farty in the first place so they just screen for genes is essentially what they do Did they notice because some were more smelly than others and were like h you can measure me from cows It looks a bit weird but you can measure it similar to how you would measure me from oil and gas So there are sensors that will measure the concentration of methane in the air So if you hold it near a cow you can get an idea of just like how high
the methane concentration is Obviously you need to take repeat samples of that You can also just put a cow in a chamber that will just constantly measure the um concentration of methane and then the flow rate of methane I've seen pictures of this and it looks nuts It's like a whole thing that fits over their head sort of thing Pretty weird That's fun though I just thought you know when they go to sleep in the shed you could just put a sensor there right they also do it
when they're awake But I I just imagine they're roaming free in the fields grazing you know Yeah I think when they actually do take the measurements with the female cows they tend to take measurements when they're being milked because the cows right there Yeah Fair And also they're like used to being like a bit handled and whatever Yeah Poked and prodded Is it a good idea or is it a bit odd like I know that they're already livestock and we've probably already
bred them to a certain extent but like is doing this a sustainable choice to like breed cows to have less farts and burps there is a limit to how much you can breed cows so that they will naturally produce less less meane without having any detrimental impacts They have a stomach ruminant stomach Yeah Four chambers that produces methane cuz it's basically anorobic digestion happening in that stomach They're trying to reduce methane in that stomach while also not majorly impacting the cow's
ability to digest and process food Yeah that's what I was going to say cuz if you're doing that then you are fundamentally altering like how a cow works essentially aren't you there is a limit to how much you can reduce it by I think it kind of maxes out at around 15% Is that enough i mean I suppose if a cow is producing what did you say at the beginning like 100 kg of methane a year yeah So 50% is not nothing And then if you start feeding it seaweed or boa as
well Yeah Maybe you could potentially really knock that lower Yeah you can knock it lower But really the main thing to reduce methane from cows is basically have fewer cows Yeah Less demand What do you know just remove it at the source But how do you convince people to do that to eat less meat Make it really expensive Meat tax No honestly I paid this is slightly unrelated but I paid £4.75 for a packet of smoked salmon and I haven't done that in ages because it's
obscene and you get like three slices and then it's gone But I reckon if you I mean steak is already expensive but if you put it up people would stop buying it That is true And like in some countries they are starting to introduce a methane tax on livestock and then the cost would probably transfer down to consumers who are we going to destroy the entire farming industry though if we do this yeah that is a question Denmark currently has although they will be
introducing a methane tax for livestock So beginning in 2030 it's from it's both cows and pigs Um it's around $100 per cow in 2030 going up to $250 by 2035 Basically it's a Pluto pay tax So Pluto we covered that in the um plastic bottle episode earlier this year and it got passed through in Denmark Uh farmers were not too happy So we shall see uh whether or not it sticks around cuz other countries that did try to introduce it Australia maybe New Zealand tried to
introduce one but there was just too much push back from farmers so they ended up scrapping it I mean to be fair to the farmers is it's not their fault that the cows make a lot of methane And there's also lots of other companies that we could tax that produce a lot of uh CO2 and other greenhouse gases But I suppose could that encourage farmers to grow a different kind of food that has a similar nutritional value i say this as a not farmer but someone who's looked
into sustainability is sustainable farming practice to not deplete the soil You would rotate your crops and you would rotate which field is being grazed on and then you know someone have a rest Would that encourage them to have better practices and take up the boa or ruminate trials and then find the less gassy cows not nothing against gassy people but you know if we have a choice My initial reaction is probably not right If you're a dairy or beef farmer and suddenly you get told that you're
going to be taxed an extra I don't know 50 quid a cow or whatever or 50 quid per gallon of milk you're going to be pretty cross aren't you because already that's eating into your profits Yeah But if they then say you'll be taxed 50 quid per gallon of milk but if you feed your cows this thing we won't tax you Maybe it offsets it but then you still have to pay for the thing I don't know I don't know what you would do in that situation as a farmer also cuz it's um per cow
It's not per cubic meter or kilogram of methane that's being emitted by the farm So even if they did start feeding their cows seaweed or other additives or start having lower methane cows they're still paying the same amount cuz it's just oneh number or one amount per cow per head If you got 300 cows doesn't matter what you're feeding them it's still 300 cows Yeah Unless they change the figure to be something that would take into account measures farmers could do to um
reduce methane then it's probably not going to encourage I think that sounds like poorly designed policy or is it just cuz it's early days and they will bring that in later on when it's bit more mainstream because it could be these measures are just not widespread enough that they can't offer that or the government doesn't know enough about it to put it into policy Yeah I'd be interested to see what the actual methane tax goes towards cuz if it goes towards supporting farmers in other
areas and could encourage them to take actions cuz if they're paying into a tax but then they can like get money back from the tax to do other stuff It's not all all are lost The thing that comes to my mind is if they're being taxed per cow it's not even just people who eat meat It's also people who have dairy Yeah And dairy has benefits as you know it doesn't kill the cow They can still produce a lot of nutritionally rich food with protein B12 you know something that
you lack when you're vegan but is naturally produced is B12 vitamin So is that actually encouraging the wrong thing out of people yeah it's a tricky balance There are scenarios I mean when I say scenarios I mean climate scenarios that take into account lifestyle choices So there are scenarios where people do go fully vegan but then it's a question of how are people getting all their nutritional needs and also what happens to all the animals So it's it is a balance between trying to combat and
fight climate change while also trying to maintain other things that people need to be healthy like balanced diet enough nutrition but also animal welfare Yeah it is hard Also eating meat as one individual is not responsible for the entirety of global warming or climate change There is also many other factors that we haven't mentioned like CO2 emissions from cars or shipping you know loads of other things that are messing up the planet deforestation all of that
habitat destruction So the decision to eat meat or not eat meat is your own personal one And yes not eating meat does reduce your own personal carbon footprint but we're not necessarily suggesting that the whole planet needs to give up eating meat and dairy for the rest of their lives Yeah Also in some places of the world it' be really difficult to be vegetarian or vegan because you don't have that many options especially if you're like trying to stick to a more regional or local diet
Is that because they don't have the land that is suitable for alternative i think of it as the animals that ruminate or have the four chamber stomach they have the ability to digest food that we wouldn't actually be able to Yeah Now I was just thinking of uh so I when I was in China last year we went to the part of the province I'm from Sron that borders Tibet and we tried some Tibetan food and in Tibet they eat a lot of meat because you can't grow a lot of
vegetables in that area cuz it's really mountainous really high elevation kind of dry most of the year So uh yeah the only thing I could eat was bread and potatoes I could also drink the buttermilk tea That was pretty nice But yeah I couldn't eat anything else because it was all meat based and there was no fish There's also no fish Yeah I think also a lot of people sort of are under the misapprehension that animal agriculture is a huge contributor to greenhouse
gases whereas it's not necessarily as big as people think it is like compared to other things There's an article in the conversation that suggests that only 3.9% of the total US greenhouse gas emissions is related to all of animal agriculture So then if you take out sheep and goats and chickens then beef presumably and dairy is a lot smaller percentage of even that So then it's way less So maybe we shouldn't even be worried about the cows Maybe we should be focusing on a different area
altogether But because a lot of countries also like pledged to be net zero and in a lot of like decarbonization scenarios that I've seen agriculture is more or less the only sector that doesn't actually get to zero anywhere close to zero by 2050 Most do see a reduction through measures like improving waste management replacing electrifying or having zero emission like farming equipment and stuff as well as stuff around reducing methane from livestock But because
agriculture is pretty much the only sector that doesn't actually reach net zero to actually get to net zero you then need to look into like landbased methods So increasing your carbon sinks petland restoration aforestation it's in general just really difficult to actually get to net zero It's going to be pretty much impossible unless we stop having livestock at all So I think that's kind of why people are like really interested in it If you were in charge of all beef and dairy production
for the world what would you do would you make people just farm less cows in the first place would you force them to feed their cows these additive uh additives would you make them selectively breed their cows to burp less would you scrap the whole global beef industry i would make it so that all the cows can be freerange and not no more intensive farming for the cows and sheep and pigs and chickens That's a very noble goal What would you do Antonia you're the effectively the queen
of dairy and beef Um you might get lynch Okay Politically am I elected and am I up for a reelection or am I just doing this one thing you don't have to stand for re-election You're the queen of big dairy and meat Big cow Big cow I feel like culturally meat seems to be very much a part of cultures around the world I don't necessarily agree that everyone has to eat meat to be a full human to be a full person You know some people think vegetarians and vegans don't have the
full spectrum of life even But yeah cuz I see the benefit in Tibet you can't grow any other food then what else are you going to eat so I think you're just going to have to do all the measures but you will have to pay for it in some way No I think that's the thing with all of these things There is no one measure that you could justifiably use for every different country every different scenario But freedom for the cows would be great No more intensive farming What
do you think Ellie yeah I think it's too difficult to just put any one measure on it I think you could do everything and still not really alter the output that much or reduce the methane that much I think we should focus on other areas I I defend the cows I'm with Jasmine Let's get rid of intensive farming especially the way the Americans do it Let the cows roam free Everyone can eat less meat not necessarily no meat And then we'll start ramping up those horrible big polluters
Isn't it like something like 57 companies are responsible for most of the global warming in the world or something most of the emissions in the world Yeah about right Let's get rid of them and leave the cows alone Uh I think that's a good place to leave it We've now freed all the cows freed all livestock and all animals will be free roaming But if you wanted to know how we got to this place we were first talking about how much cattle produces methane and how it does have an impact on global
warming Estimates are out about how much but farmers can use feed additives doesn't come through into the dairy or meat product The alternative is genetic selection Thank you for listening and we'll hope to see you in another episode The views expressed in this podcast belong entirely to the person that said them They do not represent any industry or organization If you enjoyed listening to these views it would really help us out if you could rate us leave a review
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