First an internet search engine... Now pig sh**?

Is there no end to the power that is google? Clearly there is and that is why they are investing in pig poo power (say that really fast 100 times without dying of lack of oxygen or boredom). As seen in this article.

The technology is simple, decompose the poo to produce methane (our favourite gas after oxygen and helium... *squeeeek!*) and then burn this highly potent GHG to produce heat to boil water to produce steam to turn a turbine to produce electricity! Loads of to-s!


Get this... it will produce enough to power an amazing 35 homes! That's right 3...5...! To be fair 1 american home is practically 20 European homes... WIN.


Highlighting the offsetting equivalent, the effect of 900 cars have been taken of the roads (and are now in China...lol!) no in all seriousness it shows the GHG producing potential of livestock.

How do you solve a problem like Maria eating meat? Alternatives!

VS

 

The end is nigh!

Well I am not talking about 21st of December... regardless of what those great survivors the Mayans thought (even if THE Britney Spears 'sings' a song about it) the world won't end; but one absolute certainty is that the cows will come home to fart....

The end of my blogging days may be over... screams of please no I hear?!? (or are they all 'Thank God!')... nevertheless I will try and look at the alternatives to a life in an atmosphere of animal farts.

From what the much of the literature points to as the driver in increased livestock production, demand seems to generate the largest fundamental factor in the quantity of emissions. So, to reduce emissions and other detrimental effects of livestock farming we have to reduce demand and consumption.

This is not easy... I personally do not want to stop eating meat altogether, although, after watching the documentary Mat the Truth, I was seriously contemplating going cold turkey... on turkey...

Proteins are vital to human health and life. So if we don't eat meat, what would we eat instead?

A commonly given example is fish. Fish is often seen as a better food stuff than meat, but fishing has caused a substantial amount of environmental damages as well as the state of fish stocks world wide ebbing closer and closer to depletion. The UN FAO World Fisheries and Aquaculture report (2010) states that 32% of stocks are over exploited/depleted or recovering; 53% are fully exploited and 15% are moderately exploited. Shifting more than a billion people in the developed world onto an already stressed resource will cause its collapse. Greater consumption of smaller fish which is environmentally sustainable and healthier for you is one option. If this resource is ever going to support an increasing number of people then sustainability is required, please read Worm et al. (2009) for an in depth insight into the potential approaches to take, most could be applied to other environmental problems; a multidisciplinary approach.

Corn, Soy and Grains are the food stuffs we generally feed to livestock. They are also very much fit for human consumption; but we tend to feed more of it to the meat we eat then personally consume ourselves. I personally don't eat corn... I know shoot me... but as you will find out in a later post (ooh foreshadowing I know right?!) I have taken certain steps in the right direction already!

This list doesn't look too impressive... but one factor easily neglected is simply reducing the amount of meat we eat. Meatless Fridays, or what Roman Catholics call Fridays... notable celebrities do it, Paul McCartney, Leona Lewis, they are talented because they eat a lot less meat... in fact none! OK... there is no link between talent and meat consumption. 

Reducing meat consumption has many benefits. You are healthier, richer (from not buying any meat, doesn't work if your meat originates in a five finger discount manner), aiding the environment in becoming less polluted and less full of cow farts. Also you can waste all those calories on chocolate, more room for nutella! OK I am not advising you to go on to an all nutella diet as fun as it would be, full of chocolaty goodness..... OMG it has been so long since I have had nutella I would kill love to have some right now..... *drools* mmmmmmm. Nutella pizza - nutella instead of tomato sauce and kinder in place of cheese. HEAVEN... like this, but rather than the nuts (which are a great source of proteins and energy!!!) add bananas... *collapses*.

10 minutes later....*wakes up*

Back to the point!

My New Years resolution is to eat less meat... so far I think I have eaten a little meat every day FAIL, but it hasn't been one whole week yet!

So I'll let you ponder about other foods you can stuff yourself with... but remember put down the fork, don't eat too much beef chicken or pork!

Add a little P, get a load more Poo! Part 5: P reserves and productivity!!

More on the reserves of P!

Van Vuuren et al.’s (2010) highlights predicted use of P from 1970 to 2100. Clearly they think that P reserves are going to last a while; they come to the conclusion that:

• There are no signs of short-term to medium-term depletion
• In the longer term, the depletion of low-cost and high-grade resources will have consequences for future production trends
• Given the impact of resource uncertainty on the assessment of risks associated with P depletion, it is important to pay more attention to data on P resources. Uncertainty was found to play a role in data on P production,
• Phosphate rock depletion may lead to concentrating production to a few countries, thus increasing production costs.
• Major reductions in the use of fertiliser P can be achieved by improving plant nutrition management, better integrating of animal manure and recycling P content in human and/or animal excreta

What is most interesting about the article is that it highlights the different scenarios of P depletion; the figures show their findings:

Cordell et al. (2009) also look at the geopolitics; inequality; economics and relative irony of it all – peak oil has received a lot of attention and it is only necessary for energy and cars (I know hear me out!) whilst P is integral to crop growing, and that ever vital necessity that is food.

The figures below (taken from Cordell et al. 2009) include a pretty graph showing Phosphorous sources over time; it just shows how dependant, or as Cordell et al. puts it ‘addicted’ (2009, 292). 

With high grade P reserves being depleted (Cisse and Mrabet, 2004), and our addiction (Cordell et al. 2009), the debate as to where the next lot of P will come from, which just adds to increased food insecurity and environmental degradation due to a potential in greater mining; this leads to:

• Greater energy use – fossil fuels and GHG emissions.
• Greater waters usage and wastage – particularly in countries where safe water supplies are already an issue.
• Rising prices – of P, fertilisers, agriculture and fundamentally the cost of food).

Inorganic fertiliser alone is not sufficient in restoring soil organic carbon (SOC) that forms through decomposition in situ of organic materials , and attaining the highest yields in crop production  (Su et al, 2006; Liu et al., 2010). SOC is an integral part to the soil and provides plants with capacity to grow due to its properties or absorbing water and nutrients. Fertilisers cannot provide that level of SOC; just another benefit of using manure and other waste material to fertilise the soil.

Turnerand Leytem (2004) looked into phosphorous compound sequestration from, of all things, urine. Their success in fractionating the compounds in two steps furthers the research in attaining P from readily available resources, excrement. Admittedly, this is a much more energy intensive way as well as poorly cost-effective; but it opens the doors to greater utilisation and indeed valuation of what we all poop and pee out.

So a variety of sources point to manure and other forms of excreta as a sustainable and beneficial source of P; not to mention an eventual necessary source!

Happy New Year!!! Lets hope there are a lot less cows farting this year!

Replying to a comment! Again!

This is another reply to another great comment posted on the 'Free the Turkeys! Put down that fork!!!' post made on Christmas Eve! Yulia K wrote:

"I agree, the last video you posted is very insightful, reminding us of the priorities. I like the idea of using pee for P and hope it materilizes, as this will provide us with a renewable source of P, alleviating one of the numerous global problems. However, your last three posts also made me realize something more gloomy, which is that in reality people choose to lead an unsustainable lifestyle, such as choosing to consume meat, and shift the blame for problems such as the global food shortages onto factors like biofuels, for example, which is what I am writing about in my blog. 

It takes 3-4 times more P to support a meat-based diet and also more land to cultivate meat, as land is needed to produce cattle feed too. This means that meat production uses more natural resources, indirectly resulting in the food shortages. If we evaluated what our priorities are and all took responsibility for our own actions, would it not make more sense to lead a less meat-intensive diet, as this would free up the natural resources, such as land and P? 

I find this issue very relevant to biofuels, as decreasing our meat consumption and food waste would likely result in less food shortages and free up more land for activities such as sustainable biofuel cultivation, which should result in GHG emissions savings and greater energy security. Would this not be more useful than leaving all as it is at present i.e. blaming so much on biofuels, for example, as the Gallagher Report (2008) seems to do, preventing the cultivation of biofuels, carrying on with our meat-intensive diet and high P consumption to then realize in the future that food shortages are still increasing as more and more people consume more, P and fossil fuels are running out and we are not prepared for that, and our GHG emissions have not decreased.

While I am also a hypocrite promoting a vegetarian diet here, my point is that I feel that too much emphasis is placed onto blaming industrial activities for the global problems and very little onto us, the consumers, which is not always useful. Therefore I very much agree with you that we should take greater action as citizens (I think this is what you were trying to say, if I understood correctly), even though technological fixes may help."

My Reply:

Thanks for this EPIC post!

You are right; if we did eat less meat, then it would be significantly justifiable to produce more biofuel. However like every other resource or commodity it falls down to the distribution of the meat that is important. If the cost of meat actually took ecosystem service costs into consideration as well as environmental valuations then the cost would increase and there are potentially two outcomes: decrease in demand, reducing consumption; increase in 'innovative' ways at maximising profits to reduce cost production and increase consumption through economies of scale.

The first way would disproportionately affect those who have the lowest incomes as cheap meat is sometime the only source of protein in a diet as most substitutes cost a lot more. The second would lead to further environmental and ecological degradation as intensive farming would become more intensive at the cost of land quality, animal welfare and pollution.

The second point is relevant due to the EU 'wide' ban onBattery hen egg farming. A reported 80 million hens are being 'freed' (some are going to be slaughtered) due to new legislation preventing the use of the current intensive hen cages to produce eggs; a new 'enriched' cage (37% bigger) has to be used.

This results in a just bigger than a sheet of A4 paper space per chicken in a cage. Not that nice! (some info on ending factory farming here).

If we all became concerned consumers and thought about our individual actions then we would achieve a lot more than holistic legislation which is passing the buck of responsibility to people we pay and elect to act for us. I agree with you. Consumption is the problem; and as consumers, we are the ones who have to change OUR habits.

I hope this reply isn’t too bad! I like posting long posts too! :D

Meat the truth! Documentary Time!

This documentary, presented by a Dutch MP (Dutch Party for the Animals - might be a little biased) explores the role livestock plays in GHG emissions; pretty much what this blog is designed for!

The whole documentary is a great watch, please do!

To eat or not to eat meat… That is the question! Part 1: is it all demand?

When people debate the issue around livestock and the negatives of increasing production of meat and livestock associated products many say we should reduce meat consumption.

REALLY?!?

Now sure, one way we COULD reduce emissions from livestock is to cut down on our sausages, chicken legs and kebabs; after all, less cows and sheep farting, less direct methane emissions. But there are other issues around more animals on the planet that feed our hunger for meat. This paper by McApline et al. 2009 looks at environmental degradation in Colombia, Brazil and Australia due to expanding beef production and the deforestation it causes.

A big issue around emissions from livestock is the fact that there are large indirect GHG emissions from forest clearance and land use changes. The paper looks at factors that have increased beef production and surprisingly, in some countries like Brazil, it is not supply and demand which dictate beef production and emissions; its land prices. Land policy in Brazil has made it more profitable to clear once natural rainforest and keep it clear than let it be. The cheapest way to keep vegetation from establishing again is to regularly cut regrowth… cows are surprisingly good at turning grass into milk, meat, leather and other useful products for human consumption. This not only has a dramatic effect on local ecosystem services and physiography; the global consequences include depletion of the capacity for natural carbon sequestration.

Meat is big business. Curtailing meat production will directly affect the economies which rely mainly on agriculture and the primary sector. This is a controversial topic as if a country is able to utilise its natural resources within its territory for economic means and development ‘at the expense’ of the environment, who are we to judge? We chopped down our ‘oak’ forests centuries ago to fight wars with continental Europe. With the specific driver of meat production in this context being land management, economical profitability and natural lawn mowers; there is an assumption that if the main driver of livestock (beef) expansion being the one stated, then whether you eat the meat or not, there still will be emissions from it, albeit highly inefficient per capita of digestion. In the case of Australia, land management reform in the favour of protecting old growth forests has reduced the profitability in expanding cheap, subsidised (through tax incentives) cattle ranches. This protection has worked, again regardless of whether Sheila or Russell eat steak or love veggie burgers.

However, with all business, it is fundamentally based on a market; therefore demand. If demand for meat (whatever the reason) decreases; then production and emissions would – economically speaking – decrease too.

I will explore more arguments around decreasing dependence on livestock as a food source. However, I am guessing it isn’t as straight forward as I think it’s going to be!

PEE POWER! Part 1: MCFs

The moment we have all been waiting for is here!

Pee can be used as a fuel... revolutionary! The article  looks at the potential of using the compounds in urine to produce electricity using microbial fuel cells (MCFs). These little packages of micro-organisms use the biomass in urine and converts it into a form of renewable energy; renewable in the sense that as long as we're living, we're peeing!

Ieropoulos et al. (the authors of the article) go on to highlight the importance of this research and the wider implications of this technology. It offer one was or extracting N, K and P nutrients from urine which are often at high concentrations and out them to good, fertilising use; rather than spending billions to treat this waste water straight away, we could utilise more of the power from it and it will push treatment costs down; energy security, it just so happens where more people live, who all demand energy, more pee is, what a coincidence!

Animal urine can also be used... the possibilities are endless! But don't start filling up your car with the yellow stuff just yet...

Fossilised farts (and other agroGHGs)! Part 2: The expansion of Livestock and the debate around the Anthropocene.

Now, studies by Brook et al. (1996); Schlit et al. (2010); Sowers (2010); Burns (2011); Singrayer et al. (2011) and Wolff (2011) all show ice core records and other proxies (analogues for past environmental records) like speleothem (calcite deposits) to show CH₄ and other GHGs like N₂O over the Holocene (11 ka BP; Sowers, 2010) to 140 ka (Schlit et al. 2010). These records show the link between precessional cycles and CH₄ concentrations; but up until 5 ka, the CH₄ concentration deviated from what is expected due to the precessional cycle. The NH has been at an insolation minima due to the precessional cycle being in a NH negative stage (i.e. the southern hemisphere, SH, has more intense summers and winters).

This discrepancy between expected and observed therefore does not follow the natural process. Now shoot me if you must, but I agree with research put forward by Ruddiman, and I am joining in the argument/debate on the Anthropocene. In an article by Ruddiman et al. in a special issue Holocene published in June 2011 (where some of the other 2011 articles from Holocene are taken) attempts to falsify anthropogenic and natural increases in CO₂ and CH₄. The case states that only one other (stage 11) deglaciation has a similar increase in methane after the initial peak and decreasing tail (which would be due to a natural or at least non-anthropogenic process). All of the records (except stage 11) show a decrease of CH₄ in line with NH summer insolation minima. Stage 1 (our current Holocene/Anthropocene) does not follow this trend. Due to the rise and spread of humans through the globe, the establishment of civilisations and the first age of modernity through agricultural development, Ruddiman et al. (2011) and Fuller et al. (2011) show that it is expansion of agricultural practices of wet-rice farming and livestock intensification which is responsible for the anomalous rise in atmospheric methane contribution. This is significant for this blog as it shows (even among scientists like myself… ok I am only a student) humans have had an effect on the greater environment and the Earth’s ecosystems through a variety of anthropogenic process; relating this to livestock they include deforestation (increasing CO₂) and increased agricultural production (increasing CH₄ and later with the green revolution N₂O). This rise is evident 5 ka; that is why I believe that humans have had a significant impact on the earth before 250 yrs BP, it’s been 5 ka that’s how far the Anthropocene extends. This is shown in the graph taken from Fuller et al. 2011. 

Graph showing CH₄ predicted (NH insolation records) and measured CH₄ in GRIP ice core over time.

The Fuller et al. (2011) article looks at agricultural (pastoral and arable) contributions to prehistoric methane levels, using archaeological evidence to match it to the GHG records. This graph from their article shows the deviation from the predicted methane concentrations from the GRIP ice core. The black square points represent actual methane concentrations. The difference between the two data sets is ‘potentially’ cow farts and other anthropogenic processes (causing the deviation). They go deeper, investigating the spatial distribution of the technologies and knowledge of the more intensive (and greater GHG producing) agricultural techniques over time. Here are some maps showing the expansion of livestock practices:

Southern and Eastern Asia Livestock technique dispersal Fuller et al. 2011

Africa Livestock technique dispersal Fuller et al. 2011 

Southern Asia Livestock technique dispersal Fuller et al. 2011

The increased expansion of these farming practices means that more food was able to be cultivated, for direct food (like rice) or indirect food (like livestock feed).  This archaeological evidence shows the actual distribution of the increasing anthropogenic CH₄ sources. Another integral point (that will be elaborated on in part 3 of Fossilised farts) is the fact that the inter-polar gradient (IPG) between ice core records of CH­₄ concentration in Greenland and Antarctica begin to equate (Chappellaz et al., 1997; Burns, 2011). If for instance the NH boreal arctic polar circumference began to emit greater amounts of CH₄, then Greenland’s ice cores will have a greater concentration of the gas than Antarctica’s cores due to the proximity and difficulty of inter-polar diffusion. The fact that the IPG is levelling out shows that the source is low latitude; agricultural expansion into Africa, Southern Asia and South-Eastern Asia can be an explanation to this. Coupled with greater CH₄ emissions from the amazion basin (due to a stronger SH summer) and other low latitude CH₄ sources; this could explain the 5 ka rise. 

So what is the problem with excessive farting (also burping, urinating and excreting)?

Why is it even an issue worth discussing in a blog dedicated to the world of excrement? Well the fundamental problem we face, not just as a species, but as inhabitants of earth, is climate change. We humans use the planet as our only home, kitchen, garden and toilet. Like any other confined space, when you begin to change the chemical make-up of the gas enclosed in that volume, you begin to change the overall physical, chemical and thermal properties of that gas. In the case of excrement, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) is produced through a variety of processes (as is carbon dioxide, CO₂) which contribute to the greenhouse effect (Popp et al., 2010). Carbon dioxide is the most significant anthropogenic produced GHG due to the sheer quantity that is emitted into the atmosphere from human activities.  

However, as I touched upon in the previous post, over 100 years, the same amounts CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O have varying potencies due to their thermodynamic properties. This property is applied as a ration of heat trapped by one unit mass of the GHG compared to one unit mass of CO₂; this is called the Global Warming Potential (GWP) (Pitesky et al., 2009). As it a ratio, CO₂ has a GWP of 1; CH₄ has a GWP of 23 (in the previous post I wrote that the potency of methane was 20 times that of carbon, it was wrong sorry!); N₂O is 296 (FAO, 2006). From this data, it shows how important methane and nitrous oxide produced from livestock production, and in particular from poo, will be an increasing problem, not just as the total number of GHGs (CO₂ and non-CO₂) is set to increase from projected and modelled figures (Popp et al., 2010). In addition, with populations estimated to reach 9 billion by 2055 (World Bank, 2011) and increasing qualities of life reflecting greater demand for meat in the diet; livestock rearing is set to increase; that equates to a whole load of shhhhh… excrement.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) commissioned a report on the impact livestock production has on the planet,Livestock’s long shadow (FAO, 2006). As a whole, livestock (either directly or indirectly) is responsible for 18% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions (FAO, 2006); those figures broken down into individual GHG include:

·  Carbon dioxide (CO₂) 9% of global anthropogenic emissions.

·  Methane (CH₄₎ 35 – 40% of global anthropogenic emissions.

·  Nitrous oxide (N₂O) 65% of global anthropogenic emissions.

·  Ammonia (NH₃) 64% of global anthropogenic emissions.

However, as I will investigate later on in the blog (or further towards the top of the blog), Excretion and everything  does not just play an integral role to GHG emissions, it also plays a vital role in the nutrient cycle, particularly phosphorous and nitrogen. Phosphorous (P), as well as nitrogen (N) in the form of nitrates and other vital macronutrients like magnesium (Mg), potassium (K) and calcium (Ca) are required as well as a variety of other micro nutrients (Robinson, 2004). Phosphorous is often a limiting factor in plant production, due to its vital role as an ingredient in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), the building blocks of life; and in the Adenine triphosphate (ATP) which is the primary method of intracellular energy release and storage (Biology-Online, 2011), so we can all move, keep warm and most importantly… LIVE! Also, specifically to plants, P is necessary for healthy root growth, vital for the uptake of water and the other nutrients. The role fertiliser plays is significant, and indeed focusing on one of the nutrients, phosphorous, an increasingly important point has surfaced. Livestock (cows for example) need to eat; feed is created from plants; high amounts of land and biomass is required to produce vast amounts of feed; limited land resources dictates more intensive farming methods; greater dependence on higher yields; synthetic fertilisers created to provide the vital nutrients for plant growth; mining of phosphates from a finite source requires large amounts of energy whilst depleting the source.

As you can see, just from scratching the surface, cow (and other animals’) farts and poo pose a more serious problem than the humorous connotations applied to them suggest. Over the next few weeks and posts I hope to show you a greater insight in to the world of climate change, nutrients (re)cycling, pollution, eutrophication, renewable energy and many, many more uses, and subjects, which poo influences.

This blog may overlap with others, in fact it will. A post by fellow GEOG3057 blogger Emma (I hope she is Ok with me using her name), touches on the renewable potential of methane gas from… well cow farts. Another blog dedicated to the debate around biofuels can also shed light on the increasing diversification of energy sources, by another fellow GEOG3057 blogger Yulia. But those topics are for another time!

Next I hope to give you an insight into past methane releases and the relationships between the potent GHG and the atmosphere, looking at palaeo records of methane…essentially fossilised cow farts… Ok well some of the methane was produced by pre-modern time cows farting. Until then… watch those deadly emissions!

References:

Biology Online, 2011, ATP Definition. Available from: http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Atp. [Online] accessed 24/10/2011.

FAO, UnitedNations, Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2006, Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental issues and options, FAO-UN:Rome.

Pitesky, M. E., Stackhouse, K. R. and Mitloehner, F. M. 2009, Clearing the Air: Livestock’s contribution to climate change, Advances in Agronomy, 103, 1-40 pp.

Popp, A., Lotze-Campen, H., Bodirsky, B., 2010, Food consumption, diet shifts and associated non-CO₂ greenhouse gases from agricultural production. Global Environmental Change, 20, 451-462 pp.

Robinson, G. 2004, Geographies of Agriculture: Globalisation, restructuring and sustainability. Harlow: Pearson Publications Limited.

World Bank, Development Research Group, Human Developmentand Public Services Team, (Das Gupta, M., Bongaarts, J. and Cleland, J.) 2011, Population, Poverty and SustainableDevelopment: A Review of the Evidence, World Bank: Washington D.C., WPS5719.

If you find this sh.... stuff interesting then you might find these blogs interesting to! 

Please check them out, as I try to myself!

Agriculture: Human Health and Earth Health: http://robs-agriculture.blogspot.com/ 

Biofuels: Way Ahead or Blind Alley: http://biofuels-wayaheadorblindalley.blogspot.com/

Fixing Climate Change: http://fixingclimatechange.blogspot.com/

Welcome!

Welcome!

This blog is to inform, amaze, inspire and of course explain the many uses of poo… Now please do not adjust your screens or refresh the page, I did just write poo.

Before we indulge ourselves in the wonders of excretion, understanding of the past is vital to analysing potential solutions of present problems for the future. In this context, methane (CH4) is a significant greenhouse gas (GHG), 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) and one way that it is emitted is in the form of cow (and other animal) farts, and the anaerobic decomposition of organic materials, like manure. 

But before all of that! Here is a video that makes light of the fundamental argument that I am making.

Enjoy and I will post again soon!