From the USDA, via Eurekalert. The goal was quantifying the moo. Next step, regulation. Hello $10/gallon milk.
In the first detailed study on emissions from large-scale dairies, ARS researchers found that a commercial dairy with 10,000 milk cows generated an average of 3,575 pounds of ammonia, 33,092 pounds of methane, and 409 pounds of nitrous oxide every day>
How Dairy Farms Contribute to Greenhouse Gas Emissions
By Ann Perry
July 19, 2011
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have produced the first detailed data on how large-scale dairy facilities contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases. This research was conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists at the ARS Northwest Irrigation and Soils Research Laboratory in Kimberly, Idaho.
ARS is USDA’s principal intramural scientific research agency, and these studies support the USDA priority of responding to climate change.
ARS soil scientist April Leytem led the year-long project, which involved monitoring the emissions of ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from a commercial dairy with 10,000 milk cows in southern Idaho. The facility had 20 open-lot pens, two milking parlors, a hospital barn, a maternity barn, a manure solid separator, a 25-acre wastewater storage pond and a 25-acre compost yard.
Concentration data was collected continuously for two to three days each month, along with air temperature, barometric pressure, wind direction and wind speed. After this data was collected, Leytem’s team calculated the average daily emissions for each source area for each month.
The results indicated that, on average, the facility generated 3,575 pounds of ammonia, 33,092 pounds of methane and 409 pounds of nitrous oxide every day. The open lot areas generated 78 percent of the facility’s ammonia, 57 percent of its nitrous oxide and 74 percent of the facility’s methane emissions during the spring.
In general, the emission of ammonia and nitrous oxide from the open lots were lower during the late evening and early morning, and then increased throughout the day to peak late in the day. These daily fluctuations paralleled patterns in wind speed, air temperature and livestock activity, all of which generally increased during the day. Emissions of ammonia and methane from the wastewater pond and the compost were also lower in the late evening and early morning and increased during the day.
Results from the study were published in the Journal of Environmental Quality.
Read more about this work in the July 2011 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
davidmhoffer says:
July 20, 2011 at 2:03 am
Paul Deacon;
And surely most male calves are raised for meat and slaughtered young (except for the studs)?>>>
Nope, they get their kahonies removed. That’s what a “steer” is.
*************
What I meant. The steers are slaughtered young, surely (or do you eat old steers over there?).
All the best
We have pig farms in Oz that utilize methane to run their electricity. Were mammoths ruminants?
I’m studying my Diploma in Organic Agricultural production, and methane is reabsorbed by the soil. But the greens here wanted to put a tax on beef and sheep because of their methane
production, at $11 per head of cattle (including dairy) and $7 on sheep. We have billions of sheep and cattle in Oz. That was run out of town, and the ads that ran ‘even if all carbon emissions were nil tomorrow, that cattle and sheep methane production would still warm the planet. Eat veg not meat? Not kidding they are trying the same thing in UK, showing those hairy highland cattle saying that cows and bi products have a higher carbon footprint then chickens?
OH Gawd! So have humans a bigger carbon footprint than chickens, stupid @ur momisugly@@ur momisugly@s They are paid for this illuminating announcement?
Don’t belittle the importance of this sort of BS. In New Zealand, we now have a law that in 2015 all agricultural businesses will have to pay for their emissions. It’s called a carbon tax by the politicians and a fart tax by the farmers. New Zealand is a great test-bed of social experimentation. A nice compliant, discreet population with a silent majority at about 99.9%. Policies are often introduced in NZ before adoption by Australia. Once the downunder crowd has adopted modern technologies, concepts or legislation, it is so much easier for larger economies to drive the wedge home.
So, to reiterate – New Zealand farmers, by law, will have to start paying for cow burps by 2015. The average estimate of tax burden is somewhere around $40,000 per annum per farm. The fact that the consumption of grass-sequestered CO2 is a natural part of the carbon cycle has completely escaped the notice of our esteemed but logically challenged politicians. It is not about the science, folks – it is all about revenue. Be afraid.
This type of study is old hat. The wasteful aspects of cattle production are well-researched and documented. The cow is so inefficient you wouldn’t get a patent on it if you invented it.
The losses of methane and reactive nitrogen from cattle are important because they represent lost profit – feed costs money, whether it be grass or corn, organic or not. Whether or not GHG emissions are worth worrying about is moot. In the UK, there is no choice, thanks to the Climate Change Act. But – if you think that diffuse water pollution by nitrate and phosphate from agriculture and sewage is insignificant – think again. It degrades your environment, from ditch, to stream, to river, to sea. Fixes abound, but they all cost, and food-price inflation is a hot-potato for governments everywhere.
This will still be an issue when the current crapola is a distant speck in the rear-view memory.
Worried about those wanting to fit afterburners to cows, think like a bull? and then revise – no bull!!
Methane production from ruminants is reabsorbed into the soil. I didn’t think the NZ law was passed yet? However, the same has been suggested in Oz by the Garnaut report who also said
farmers should farm kangaroos instead of beef or sheep. (There goes are diary and wool industries?) forgetting kangaroos are marsupials, and haven’t been domesticated. Chemical
fertilizers are damaging to the environment they are a quick fix band aid for soil fertility and destroy microbiology that helps plants and pasture forage to absorb necessary nutrients via microbiology. Well of course the PETA and Animals Australia want us to stop eating meat. Stop domesticating animals and having pets. Carbon taxes will do nothing to improve the environment and is a stealth tax promoted by carbon traders and banks. Sack the government who want this.
It seems like every day, another government agency cries out to be de-funded. Is this really a legitimate function of USDA and our tax dollars? Don’t we have all of this crying about a debt limit and possible default (assume for a moment that hitting the debt ceiling would result in default, which would only happen if the president directed the treasury to stop paying the debt – tax revenues are enough to cover debt payments).
I luv the moo and moo pooh, so dissenters stop slandering our faithful domesticate that is a loving mum too. LOL and good night from Oz.
Paul Deacon;
What I meant. The steers are slaughtered young, surely (or do you eat old steers over there?).>>>
Slaughter would be at maturity just like heifers raised for meat production. Slaughter as calves would be “veal”. Bulls and anything old aren’t likely to become anything but pet food.
Owen says:
I have never understood why the containment ponds aren’t designed to capture that methane, clean it and use it to power generators and heat water for sanitizing the milk equipment. Seems like a waste of a valuable resource once one gets past the smell.
Especially considering this is done when it comes to sewage treatment plants. Which also have to deal with all sorts of “contamination” such as detergents and toilet paper.
Grew up on a farm raising cattle (not dairy). Here’s what happens to all that excess ammonia, methane and nitrous oxide.
Farmers are highly efficient and waste nothing. Ever hear of a manure spreader? The cow “poop” is shoveled into a spreader, taken out to a pasture and spread to fertilize the grasses. The grass helps convert it into plant material, also taking UP CO2 to become more grass. If you’ve ever worked a farm, you’ll know..the paths of the manure spreader are greener and taller than the rest of the grass. Also, it eliminates the need for other fertilizers, including ammonia and phosphates. Less air and water pollution.
See? We’re fighting global warming. But, I don’t expect any of the bureuacrats at the USDA to know anything about what actually goes on at a farm….much like the new EPA Director doesn’t know the ppm of CO2 in our atmosphere.
afraid4me,
You’re right about the grass taking up some carbon. Actually, the trick is to burn the methane. Any CO2 release from burning methane from cows is renewable, sustainable, biofuel-derived CO2–since it came from recent vegetation that the cows ate. If we fail to burn the methane, I believe that methane only lasts for around 12 years before being oxidized by other means in the atmosphere. So, if we can reduce the release of methane, we can see a relief from it’s warming effect rather quickly. (Totally unlike the more urgent fossil CO2 problem.)
DesertYote says:
July 19, 2011 at 9:03 am
“One third of a pound of ammonia per cow per day? One pound of methane per cow per day? I don’t think these number pass the sniff test 🙂 ”
Not a milk producer, but probably close in consumption rate.
“In general, a brood cow will eat about 2% of her body weight everyday. So, a typical 1200 lb cow will need 24 lbs of dry hay per day”
http://www.caes.uga.edu/commodities/fieldcrops/forages/Ga_Cat_Arc/2009/GC0901.pdf