by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, amateur space explorer and one of the richest people in the world, has joined the race to stop cows farting – and save the planet.
The $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund, which funds research to combat climate change, has donated $9.4 million to a project at the Pirbright Institute in Surrey that is trying to develop a vaccine that reduces the amount of methane producing microbes in the stomachs of humans is intended to reduce cows.
“This project represents a direct hit in our efforts to reduce methane emissions from livestock,” says Dr. Andy Jarvis, Director of the Future of Food at the Bezos Earth Fund.
Cattle bloat and belching are considered so damaging to the environment that they are currently being addressed using different approaches by many teams of scientists around the world. Some of this may sound like it was made up by an overly imaginative nine-year-old, but it’s absolutely real…
The fart blast
The global herd includes around 1.6 billion cows, each with four stomachs (or technically a four-part stomach), the majority of which is the rumen. An adult cow’s rumen holds about 200 liters and is packed with billions of bacteria that break down the plant material that its host cow consumes.
(As a side note, many bovine digestion experiments are performed on cows equipped with a cannula, which provides a sort of porthole on the animal’s side through which scientists can reach into the rumen.)
The process produces hydrogen and carbon dioxide, which are combined by enzymes and microbes to form methane, a gas that comes out from either end of a cow in a never-ending series of farts and burps. A particularly bilious bovine can easily emit over 300 liters of methane per day – enough to fill a medium-sized bathtub (at room temperature and pressure).
Combine all of these “enteric methane emissions” (to give the problem its scientific name), and you get a stinking miasma covering the planet. Research suggests that methane is the second most commonly emitted greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and is 30 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere.
However, previous attempts to develop a vaccine have been thwarted by the fact that the microbiomes of cows are different in different parts of the world. This makes it difficult to develop a universal vaccine that can deal with the wide range of methane-producing bacteria. These clever microbes have also demonstrated the ability to become resistant to chemical inhibitors over time.
Seaweed diet
Studies have found that feeding seaweed to cows can suppress the enzyme that catalyzes the methane production process, reducing emissions by about 80 percent.
Unfortunately, cows aren’t exactly keen on the taste of algae. Luckily, this can be masked with molasses – a spoonful of sugar helps break down the algae – and the additives don’t change the taste of cow’s milk. However, it is difficult to grow and process enough seaweed of the right type. Governments have been slow to issue the required shipping licenses.
Cattle-Ytic converter
Zelp, a UK-based company, has developed a burp mask that fits over a cow’s head and channels methane escaping from its mouth and nostrils to an oxidation mechanism. It works similarly to a rudimentary catalytic converter in a car, breaking down the gas.
Unfortunately, the byproducts also include carbon dioxide (better than methane, but still a greenhouse gas). Fortunately, the device can also be used to monitor the animal’s health, location and sexual receptivity.
Ray guns
A Norwegian company called N2 Applied has developed a plasma gun that fires artificial lightning bolts at cow manure. The technology adds nitrogen from the air to manure to create a nitrogen-enriched organic fertilizer. Experiments conducted on a farm in Berkshire found that tapping cow poop in this way reduced methane by 99 percent while lowering ammonia levels.
Surviving bloat
Some scientists believe the fault lies not in the feed but in the cows themselves, and it may be possible to breed animals that are less prone to flatulence. Rainer Roehe, professor of animal genetics at Scotland’s Rural College, has identified 20 cattle genes that he believes are linked to methane production. “There are big differences in methane production between individual animals,” he said Wired Magazine. His plan is to work with British farmers to genetically select cows with less flatulence to breed low-emission cattle.
Baby Ruh Poop
One particularly promising experiment conducted by scientists at Washington State University involves creating a microbial culture from baby kangaroo feces, combining it with methane inhibitors and feeding the mixture into a cow stomach simulator. The beetles in calves’ intestines do not produce methane, but rather acetic acid, which is absorbed by the animal rather than released and has been shown to promote muscle growth, making cows stronger.
And finally… Patty training
Behavioral scientists in Germany have trained cows to break through a designated gate and urinate into an artificial turf-covered stall, inevitably nicknamed “MooLoo.” Like cow farts, cow urine (cows can produce up to 30 liters per day) is a problem, leaking into rivers and other waterways and fueling algae blooms that deplete oxygen levels in the water and kill wildlife.
“The cows are at least as good as children between the ages of two and four,” says Dr. Lindsay Matthews, animal behavior researcher at the University of Auckland. Unfortunately, this is not a solution to the methane problem. Cows cannot be trained not to burp or fart, notes Dr. Matthews. “They would explode.”
Is there hope?
Cow farts are nothing to laugh about. At the COP27 summit in 2022, Frans Timmermans, the vice president of the European Commission, called tackling methane emissions “the cheapest and fastest way to slow global warming.”
At COP26 in 2021, over 100 countries committed to reducing their methane emissions by 30 percent by the end of the decade. Other countries have now joined. An obvious way to achieve these goals would be to reduce the number of cows. However, the global appetite for burgers and milkshakes is only growing. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has predicted that beef and dairy consumption could increase by 70 percent over the next 30 years.
So we may have to pin our hopes on Jeff Bezos and the cow fart kick. Or, failing that, baby kangaroo poop.
