DISCOVERY

In the last ten years or so, Global warming has become a huge concern for United States and
the world. Many understand that carbon dioxide is the culprit behind global warming; cars,
factory, and power plants are all a huge source of CO2. Despite the long standing debate of
the legitimacy of global warming, many action has been taken against global warming.
Greener cars and cleaner factories were implemented. However, most dont know that a gas
called methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and one
of the biggest contributor of methane gas are cows.
abomasum. It is similar to a human stomach because
it is a low PH environment, where broken down food
Cows, or ruminants, are a type of animal
that utilize a stomach with multiple compartment
instead of a digestive tract to break down plants and
produce energy using fermentation. The food is
passed to the first compartment of the stomach, the
rumen. The rumen contains billions of bacteria and
can contain up to 50 gallon of food, which digest the
food and break it down to protein and vitamins and
other useful resources. Then the food is passed to
the reticulum, where large pieces of food that was
not digested yet by rumen is trapped and then sent
back out to be re-chewed for a second round of
digestion through the rumen. The food then is
passed to the omasum, whose job is to squeeze out
water from the food back into the rumen to reduce
water loss. Finally, the food is passed into the last
compartment of the digestive system, the

is digested and converted to energy. This amazing

process allows cow and other ruminants to
breakdown leaves and stem, food usually
indigestible for monogastric organism, and turn it
into energy. However, the complexity and lengthy
process involving fermentation creates a deadly
byproduct for the environment, Methane gas.

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According to the EPA, 9% of
all greenhouse gas in the atmosphere
is

with a total methane of 587 produced on

earth. To make the matter worse, enteric
fermentation is only the methane produced
by cow belching, there is more methane

methane, which
produced by cow manure. Manure management of
sounds
livestock farm produce 57 million metric ton of
insignificant
methane every year; a majority of those been dairy
compare to 82% carbon dioxide in the air. However,
cows and cattle. The combined form of methane
methane is 21 times more potent as a heat trapping
cow produces and emits to the atmosphere puts
gas. Simple math will show us that despite there is
cow as one of the highest contributor of global
only 8% of methane in the air, its overall impact on
warming.
global warming as a greenhouse gas is actually more
than twice as potent as carbon dioxide. So how

In recent years, most form of methane

much methane can cows produce? Well, each beef

emission has been in a trend of steadily decreasing,

cattle produce from 60 to 71 kg and each milk cow

Natural gas system emission of methane decreased

produce 109 to 126kg of methane per year. (Johnson,

10% from 1990 to 2011 due to. The fourth highest

1995) To put that in perspective, an average human

methane producer, landfills, had a 30 percent

weight is 62kg, a milk cow can create twice of a

decrease of emission from 1990 to 2011. Enteric

human body weight in gas in a year.

fermentation and manure management has been

the exception to this trend. Enteric fermentation

Enteric fermentation, the technical term for

emission of methane has increase 10 % from 1990 to
the methane produced by cows, are the second
2011 due to the increase of cattle population.
biggest contributor of methane tailing behind
Manure management methane emission
natural gas system as of 2011; enteric fermentation
experienced a staggering 65 percent. (EPA 2011) This
produced 137 million metric ton while natural gas
increasing emission of methane from cows are left
systems produced 144 million metric ton of methane,

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unchecked and is steadily increasing while other
form of methane pollution are steadily decreasing.
The situation of cow emitting methane is
not unsalvageable however, there is many ways that
methane emission can be reduced, or at least, made
more efficient. There is many study shown that
manipulating the feed can alter the amount of
methane a cow produce. One particular method
used to reduce methane emission is the grinding of
forage before it is fed to cows. At high intake, the
reduction of methane production if as high as 2040%. (Johnson, 1995) By increasing digestibility of
low quality feed to the cows, there is proportional
decrease of methane emitted by cows.
(Johnson,1995) There are also researches that has
shown that adding lipid, or oil to the feed will
decrease the methane emitted. It was proven that
supplementing feed with 6% oilseed will decrease
enteric methane emission by 14%. (Brask, 2013)

DISCOVERY

1. Brask, M. "Methane Production and

Digestion of Different Physical Forms of
Rapeseed as Fat Supplements in Dairy
Cows."Journal of Dairy Science 96.4
(2013): 2356-365. Science Direct. Web. 4
Nov. 2014.
2.

INVENTORY OF U.S. GREENHOUSE GAS

EMISSIONS AND SINKS: 19902012 ,
USEPA, APRIL 2014

3.

Johnson, K. A. "Methane Emissions from

Cattle." Journal of Animal Science 73.8
(1995): 2483-492. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.