For every down-side in beef production, there is an up-side: enough methane to run the wheels of modern society.
Posted on 04/13/2014 1:34:42 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
Q: I read that methane is an even worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and cattle are a big source of methane emissions. How are they going to regulate that? Not just cattle, but dairy cows as well! That doubles the worry.
Fortunately, there is really nothing to worry about, scientifically. The main thing to worry about is over-reacting politicians and another layer of unnecessary government regulations.
To understand methane’s role in the atmosphere, first it’s necessary to understand what absorption means. When light passes through a gas (sunlight through air, for example), some molecules in the gas might absorb a photon of light and jump up to an excited state. Every molecule is capable of absorbing some particular wavelengths of light, and no molecule absorbs all the light that comes along. This holds true across the entire electromagnetic spectrum – microwave, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet.
The process of absorption has been studied in great detail. In a laboratory set-up, a long tube is filled with a particular gas, and then a standard light is set up at one end; at the other end of the tube is a spectrometer, which measures how much light of each wavelength makes it through the tube without being absorbed. (Mirrors are placed so as to bounce the light back and forth several times, making the effective travel path much longer; this improves the precision of the data.) From such measurements, the probability of radiation being captured by a molecule is determined as a function of wavelength; the numerical expression of that is termed the absorption cross-section. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at wattsupwiththat.com ...
Every gas absorbs heat. When they have taxed and regulated carbon dioxide as much as they can, they will start on methane. Probably the biggest green house gas is water vapor. They will probably try to tax the oceans eventually.
My attempt at predicting the future: vat-grown meat, currently in it’s infancy, will become the predominant way in which people get their meat 20 years down the line. A lot of progress needs to be made in this technology, but it makes too much economic sense for the major beef and poultry producers not to continue research in this field. The potential upside: cheaper meat, decoupled from price swings in grain or fuel, improved quality, both in taste and in the prevention of contamination and spoilage, greatly reduced need for real estate. And the environmentalists should be on-board because it would eliminate methane as well reduce carbon dioxide somewhat. Even the PETA types should like the concept - no animal would have had to die to provide the Kobe steak on their plate.
So Fart all you want.
For every down-side in beef production, there is an up-side: enough methane to run the wheels of modern society.
Just like Muslims, these 'Peta types' will never be satisfied until all freedom lovers are either crushed or brought to heel under their rule. No meat for you FRiend, vat grown or otherwise.
Sounds like we need to round up all the cows in Nevada, pronto!
And there is the real inconvenient truth for the eco freaks. But, I guess it is easier to prattle on about "greenhouse gases" than to mention that water vapor is the biggest "greenhouse gas" of them all.
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