Will feeding Beano to cows cut methane (greenhouse gas) production ? [View All]

[eppur_se_muova]

There are two current threads (one of them mine) on the topic of methane production by domestic cattle. Because methane is ~15-25 times more effective than CO2 in generating a greenhouse effect, this becomes a serious issue, despite the lower abundance of CH4 vs CO2 (and despite the fact that yes, we are talking about cow farts). Methane production is actually due to intestinal bacteria, which feed (at least partially) on the complex sugars which survive the digestive process to reach the large intestine. Flatulence (mostly CH4) in humans can be supressed by ingesting, or adding to food in preparation, an enzyme which breaks down the linkage in complex sugars which is resistant to digestion. Thus complex sugars do not reach the large intestine and there is little bacterial production of methane. It seems to me that putting these facts together leads to the suggestion that feeding this enzyme to cows should cut methane production and might even have an impact on global warming. (It would also enable the cows to derive more nutrition from their food, possibly paying for itself in the process.)

DU threads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=118480&mesg_id=118480
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=81298&mesg_id=81298

Info on enzyme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beano_%28dietary_supplement%29
http://www.beanogas.com/
http://www.bean-zyme.com/?referrer=Google

A quick Google shows someone is already working on this (actually I now recall posting something about similar work in the UK a while back). Not clear to me why it's less effective in cows than in people: http://www.fass.org/FASStrack/news_item.asp?news_id=1336

More on cow farts in the news:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2062484.ece