30/10/2019

The Answer To Climate-Killing Cow Farts May Come From The Sea

Mother Jones - 

Methane is an especially potent greenhouse gas. A modest feed additive could provide a big leverage effect.
Cristina Byvik
One day in January 2014, police rushed to a farm in Rasdorf, Germany, after flames burst from a barn. They soon discovered that static electricity had caused entrapped methane from the flatulence and manure of 90 dairy cows to explode.
Headline writers had a field day. But the incident pointed to a serious problem: Ruminant livestock, mostly cattle, account for 30 percent of all global methane emissions, pumping out 3 gigatons of the gas every year in their burps, farts, and manure. Methane is an especially potent greenhouse gas: During its 12-year lifespan after being released, it traps 84 times as much heat as carbon dioxide, and its effect on global warming over a century is 34 times that of CO2. According to the United Nations, reducing methane emissions from cows could be one of the quickest ways to slow climate change.
Methane traps 84 times as much heat as carbon dioxide.
The United States government has done little to curb this potent pollution, which makes up 36 percent of the country’s methane emissions.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s AgStar program trains farmers to turn animal waste into biofuel using anaerobic digesters, but it is optional—8,000 farms could implement it, but only about 250 have done so.
Ermias Kebreab, an animal science professor at the University of California–Davis, has spent 15 years studying alternative ways to reduce livestock effusions. Three years ago, he heard that researchers at Australia’s James Cook University had mixed bacteria from cows’ digestive systems with red seaweed and discovered a drastic decrease in methane production. Their lab experiment suggested that reformulating a cow’s diet to contain 2 percent seaweed could reduce its methane emissions by 99 percent.
Kebreab tried to replicate those results with actual animals. His team mixed varying levels of Asparagopsis armata, a type of red seaweed, into the feed of 12 dairy cows over a two-month period. The results were shocking: When the cattle’s chow consisted of just 1 percent seaweed, their methane emissions went down 60 percent. “In all the years that I’ve worked in this area, I’ve never seen anything that reduced it that much,” Kebreab says.
These are preliminary results, but they offer exciting prospects. Seaweed doesn’t require precious freshwater, fertilizer, or land to grow. It can reverse ocean acidification by absorbing carbon dioxide. We’d have to grow quite a bit of seaweed to rely on it for sequestration: One study suggests we could remove the equivalent of 42 percent of all current global CO2 emissions by covering 4 percent of the world’s oceans in seaweed farms—but that’s a lot of ocean.
And as a review published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization notes, if aquaculturists remove rocks or native sea grasses to plant massive seaweed farms, they could disrupt ecosystems and even alter coastal currents. But responsible seaweed cultivation could be a boon to marine habitats, providing nurseries for fish and snails, argues Paul Dobbins, a senior specialist at the World Wildlife Fund and former president of a kelp farm in Maine.
“You don’t have to rebuild 10,000 power plants in the world. You basically create a modest feed additive that has a big leverage effect.”
The need to rein in methane emissions is especially urgent in Cali­fornia, home to 1.8 million dairy cows. A 2016 law requires the state air resources board to implement a strategy to reduce these emissions by 40 percent from 2013 levels by 2030. In hopes of helping farmers meet those goals, Kebreab and his team launched a larger version of his cow study in March, using 21 steers that he monitored for six months. So far, the results mirror the first experiment’s, but a full analysis won’t be ready until December. Kebreab’s biggest hurdle has been finding enough seaweed; the variety that’s useful for cows isn’t domestically available.
Massachusetts-based Australis Aquaculture hopes to cultivate red Asparagopsis on ropes anchored off the coast of Vietnam. CEO Josh Goldman is excited about feeding his underwater crop to cows: “You don’t have to rebuild 10,000 power plants in the world. You basically create a modest feed additive that has a big leverage effect.”
WWF’s Dobbins says seaweed farming can be a “triple win”: a way to grow nutritious food for both cows and people, provide coastal jobs, and improve the marine environment. “Everything you do in food production has pluses and minuses relative to the environment,” he says. “Seaweed farming, if done correctly, actually comes out more on the plus side.”

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Emissions Flat-Line As 'Carrot's Not Working And There's No Stick'

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

Australia's carbon emissions appear to have edged higher in the final quarter of the 2018-19 financial year, delaying the downward trajectory the nation needs in order to hit the country's Paris climate goals.
National emissions are projected to have reached 134.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2-e) in April-June 2019, according to Ndevr Environmental Consultants, an environmental auditing company with a track record of accurately estimating the nation's emissions.
The electricity sector is producing fewer emissions as renewable energy supplies expand, nudging out coal. Credit: AAP
That total would come in about 900,000 tonnes of CO2-e more than for the previous three months, Ndevr said in a report based on public data and sector estimates. The tally would be less - by a similar amount - than the fourth quarter of 2017-18.
For the whole year, emissions were modestly higher than for previous 12 months, marking three consecutive years of increases. Excluding land-use changes - such as deforestation or tree planting - annual emissions have risen for the five years since the Abbott government scrapped the carbon price in 2014.
Source: NDEVR, Australian government
"Emissions are flattening out but it's not good enough," Matt Drum, Endvr's managing director, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. "Australia needs a significant decrease to get anywhere near the Paris goals."
A Senate order requires the federal government release official quarterly figures within five months of the end of the respective period. The fourth quarter data is due out by the end of next month.
In line with recent quarters, rises in emissions in the booming liquefied natural gas sector have negated a drop in pollution from the electricity industry as renewable power continues to expand push out coal- and gas-fired power, Ndver estimated. The worsening drought also cut emissions from agriculture.
A reduction in emissions from the electricity sector are being negated by increases from the gas industry.
Angus Taylor, the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, said that while the government won't pre-empt the official figures, "we can confirm that they will take into account the government's $3.5 billion Climate Solutions Package which accounts for every tonne of abatement needed to meet our 2030 [Paris] target".
"Australia’s international emissions reporting is world class," Mr Taylor said. "We have a comprehensive and timely reporting program for emissions."
Labor, the Greens and environmental groups have criticised the government's emissions stance, not least its plan to meet about half of Australia's Paris target by counting projected "credits" from the current Kyoto Protocol period that ends in 2020.
An environment department official told Senate estimates last week no other country has indicated it would use Kyoto "carryover" credits for their Paris goals. Germany, New Zealand and the UK are among nations to rule them out.
Mr Drum said Australia's emissions trajectory would see it overshoot the 2030 Paris target by 860 million tonnes of CO2 or equivalent gases, or about 1.6 years of its entire annual pollution at current rates.
For instance, the so-called safeguard mechanism introduced by then environment minister Greg Hunt for the 100-plus largest emitting sites had failed to stop pollution rising. Companies had found ways to tap loopholes to lift emissions about 7 per cent in the most recent annual statistics, he said.
"The carrot's not working and there's no stick," Mr Drum said.

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Anthony Albanese Recasts Labor's Climate Policy To Make It 'All About Jobs'

The Guardian - 

Opposition leader’s first vision statement says a shift to clean energy will unlock new economic opportunities
The first of Anthony Albanese’s vision statements has put a heavy emphasis on the job-creating potential of a low-carbon economy. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Anthony Albanese has sought to recast Labor’s climate policy as part of a new industrial “revolution”, saying the shift to clean energy will underpin an Australian manufacturing boom that unlocks new jobs and export opportunities.
In the first of the Labor leader’s vision statements that aim to reposition the party in the wake of the May election loss, Albanese focuses on jobs and the future of work, with a heavy emphasis on the job-creating potential of a low-carbon economy.
“The world is decarbonising. With the right planning and vision, Australia can not only continue to be an energy exporting superpower, we can also enjoy a new manufacturing boom. This means jobs,” Albanese said in a draft of a speech to the Centre of Economic Development in Perth on Tuesday, according to excerpts released in advance.
“Working towards a low-carbon future provides the opportunity to revitalise the Australian manufacturing sector – opportunities that are all about jobs.”
The speech comes as Labor MPs jostle over how the party should reposition itself on climate policy after the shadow resources minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, called for the opposition to abandon its emissions reduction target in favour of the coalition’s less ambitious plan to reduce emissions by 28% on 2005 levels by 2030.
Labor had proposed an emissions reduction target of 45% in the same period.
In a sign that Albanese wants to maintain the party’s action on climate change as a key point of difference with the coalition, he used Tuesday’s speech to emphasise the benefits of an ambitious emissions reduction policy for jobs in the renewable energy sector.
Labelling climate change “one of the greatest challenges that we face today”, Albanese also said that countries which act to harness cheap renewable energy would also be able to transform into “manufacturing powerhouses”.
“We have the highest average solar radiation per square metre of any continent, we also have some of the best wind and wave resources and we have some of the best engineers and scientists, breaking the barriers of what is possible with renewable energy,” Albanese said.
“Australia can be the land of cheap and endless energy – energy that could power generations of metal manufacturing and other energy intensive manufacturing industries.”
He points to the potential export opportunities of lithium, rare earths, iron and titanium as the “key ingredients” of the renewables revolution, saying the minerals would be in high demand in a low-carbon future.
“Just as coal and iron ore fuelled the industrial economies of the 20th century, it is these minerals that will fuel the clean energy economies of the 21st,” Albanese said, pointing to the growing demand for lithium for electric vehicles, batteries and energy storage.
But the Labor leader also used the speech to reassure “traditional industries” that they would benefit from the shift to renewables, saying the demand for metallurgical coal would continue, fuelled by growth in wind energy.
Labor has been at pains to reconnect with coal communities since its election defeat, amid concern that blue-collar workers abandoned the party in its traditional stronghold seats.
The former leader Bill Shorten has said since the election that he had misread “some of the mood”, particularly in the resources states of Queensland and Western Australia, saying voters saw some of the party’s policies as “being green-left, not for the worker, not for working people.”
“It pains me to realise at the last election our presentation meant that some people felt we weren’t putting jobs first and foremost in everything we did,” Shorten said.
Labor’s shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has said there was a perception that Labor was “sending mixed messages on the coal industry” during the campaign, while Fitzgibbon has said it was a “huge error” for Labor not to talk about coal because of a fear that it would cost city seats.
Albanese said in the speech that with more than 200 tonnes of metallurgical coal required to produce one wind turbine, growth in global wind generation over the next decade could see Australia exporting 15.5 million tonnes of coking coal to build turbines.
“This is the equivalent of three years output from the Moranbah North coking coal mine in Queensland,” Albanese said.
“Simply put, the road to a low-carbon future can be paved with hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs, as well as supporting traditional jobs, including coalmining. Labor wants to lead that clean energy revolution.”
The first of Albanese’s headland speeches comes as the party braces for the release of a review of the election that is being spearheaded by Jay Weatherill and Craig Emerson to establish what went wrong in its campaign, with climate policy and the party’s position on the Adani coalmine expected to be scrutinised.
Albanese has said the review will be a “line in the sand” for the party as it seeks to reassess all of its policies ahead of the next election, due in 2022.
Along with the focus on green jobs, Albanese also used Tuesday’s speech to call for the government to introduce an upgraded investment guarantee, saying it should form part of a “measured” economic stimulus package.
“Labor has been urging a bringing forward of the infrastructure investment that is needed to stimulate the economy,” he said.
“A bring-forward of infrastructure investment combined with increased business investment would create jobs in the short term as well as lift productivity.”

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