> Veramaris, a joint venture in the Netherlands and the United States, cultivated algae that produced the same omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil, and in quantities sufficient to replace billions of forage fish.
If something like this works, it has the double benefit of pulling carbon from the air/water and turning all of the matter into food. With typical plants we grow on land, (generally) most of the plant isn't consumed so whatever carbon it stored is a waste product. In some countries, that waste is just burned and sent back into the atmosphere. But basically 100% of algae's mass is consumable.
> But basically 100% of algae's mass is consumable.
I'm not sure it helps at all regarding co2, you'll shit it and breath it out in a matter of days... co2 is only a problem when you burn fossil fuels, because you reintroduce millions years of deposit back in the atmosphere in a very short period of time. That's why things like burning wood aren't a big deal other than localised pollution
There are countless carbon sinks within the ocean. It finds its way into the shells of creatures (calcium carbonate) and hangs around for a very long time in solid form. And lots of creatures die/defecate, that sinks to the bottom of the sea, and much of the carbon there doesn't rise back up since not all of it is consumed.
And when you're spreading seaweed over a fish farm, a good chunk of that is flowing back out into the ocean and contributing to the cycle of carbon deposits.
By avoiding fishing, you stop damaging many of the carbon sink systems in the ocean, and so as a second-order effect improve the sinks we used to have.
Over time it would gradually remove CO2 since not all of it goes back, but stuff like this isn't even a rounding error compared to the amount of CO2 we'd need to remove.
Planting billions and billions of trees would pull a lot more, but still would only make a small dent. Greening large desert regions with large scale water and local climate engineering projects, ocean seeding, etc. would also pull more but still only make a dent.
Shitting it will not release it into the air. Maybe a small percentage, depending on it's circuit in nature. But yes, your point about the CO2 circuit stands.
Side note - it always amazes me (and people when I tell them) that when you lose fat from your body, they main way for that fat to leave your system, is to burn it then breathe the co2 out - that is one of the limits on how much fat you can burn a day. You do lose some of the results of the burning, and a little through sweat, but the vast majority is down to co2 leaving your system.
(Note you can temporarily also lose weight through water loss - but that isn't the loss of actual fat from your system.)
Unfortunately this pithy comment is inconsistent with the science. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
Most of the emissions from beef comes from negative land-use change, that is the loss of carbon-sequestering life that existed in the land for both the cows and the tons of agricultural food they eat, and methane, which is released directly to our atmosphere and is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Fortunately, if we were to phase out cattle, this methane has a half-life much shorter than CO2 and would provide important early gains in restabilizing our climate.
Cos can be grass fed. Most of the beef I have ever eaten is predominantly grass fed.
In many places cows are a natural part of the ecosystem. So much so that in rewilding parts of Scotland they have ended up releasing cattle into the wild.
Its perfectly possible for grass plus grazing animals to be carbon sink, and a provide a rich ecosystem.
Sure large herbivores were and still are part of many ecosystems.
But around where I live the majority of the grass for the grass-fed cows doesn't come from anything remotely resembling a rich ecosystem. The grass is literally 'grass': maybe one or 2 types of grass, similar amount of herbs, funghi. Hardly any insects except for flies attracted to manure. These used to be ecosystems with > 20 species of grassses and herbs per square meter.
And these are even relatively small farms; trying to upscale it beyond that to make it possible for millions of humans to eat meat multiple times a week, it won't get any better. If you're putting large amounts of cows in a much much smaller habitat then what they'd naturally use, then it's not the same ecosystem anymore.
Its perfectly possible for grass plus grazing animals to be carbon sink, and a provide a rich ecosystem.
tldr; yes, but only if you want to feed a couple of people from it.
More, per the below lifecycle assesment study: "There was little variability between production scenarios except for the grassfed, where the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 37% higher due to a longer finishing time and lower finishing weight"
That link shows that twice as many emissions are attributed to farm stage vs land use change. And fta: "Farm-stage emissions include processes such as the application of fertilizers and the production of methane in the stomachs of cattle."
So not sure there is much for me to respond to you given that.
They always start with a false equivalency anyway, comparing stuff like cane sugar with cow meat, that's just extra dumb.
I don't have proper calculation, but when you add up all the processing and extra requirement to grow high protein crops, you are actually not very far from meat cost.
Which makes sense because if meat was so inefficient, then vegetal protein replacement should be much cheaper, but they are not.
he's saying the plant breathes the CO2 then turns it into food, then you feed that food to the fish instead of other fish, putting the carbon back into the life cycle
and the earth probably did turn into an ice ball millions of years ago
Nope, it does not pull any carbon dioxide from air/water.
The oil with omega-3 acids is not produced from any algae, but from cultures of special strains of Schizochytrium.
Schizochytrium is a fungus-like organism (not related to true fungi). It is called "algae" in marketing language, because "Schizochytrium" or "Stramenopiles" are words unknown to the general population and because "algae" sounds more appealing to the rich vegans who have afforded to pay the high prices under which this oil has been sold for many years.
In any case, this does not matter much. Long-chain omega-3 are an essential fish food ingredient, but by mass they are a small fraction of fish food. Much more can be gained regarding carbon dioxide by using for the fish food a mixture of vegetable proteins that have been preprocessed to enable their digestion by fish.
Schyzochytrium has enabled the production of long-chain omega-3 acids without capturing small fish or krill for a few decades, but in the past the cost of Schyzochytrium oil was too high.
In order to be used as an ingredient in farmed fish food the cost of Schizochytrium oil had to be decreased a lot.
It appears that at least Veramaris has succeeded to do this, but unfortunately such progresses have not become visible yet in the retail price of Schizochytrium oil for human consumption.
A decade ago, Schizochytrium oil was 8 to 10 times more expensive than fish oil. Then its price has decreased, so that 4 or 5 years ago it already was only 3 times more expensive than fish oil.
Unfortunately, after that there were no further price reductions, so today the retail price of Schizochytrium oil is about the same as 5 years ago.
If the production cost of Schizochytrium oil has really diminished, as said in the parent article (because it cannot be used in fish food, unless it is cheaper than fish oil), then the producers have now increased profits, without decreasing the retail price. Of course, like always, it is not certain that this is really the winning strategy for them, because there may be many others like me, who wait for a reduction in the price of Schizochytrium oil in order to switch to it from fish oil, so keeping this inflated price may result in a much lower sales volume than with a smaller price.
Moreover, for whoever wants to consume vegan oil with long-chain omega-3 acids, there is an additional trap with Schizochytrium oil. The original Schizochytrium oil has a double concentration in comparison with fish oil (i.e. around 2 grams of omega-3 acids per 5 mL of oil), but there are many sellers who sell diluted oil at the same price like the sellers who sell non-diluted oil. Thus the true price of long-chain omega-3 acids from the sellers of diluted oil may be 10 to 20 times higher than from fish oil. Therefore when buying omega-3 capsules or bottled Schizochytrium oil one must read carefully the fine print and compute the price per gram of DHA+EPA, in order to be sure that the price is right.
To clarify for other readers... The point about "Schizochytrium is not algae" is that they do not photosynthesize and thus don't create sugars from CO2. Rather, this organism is a heterotroph and consumes various organic molecules from its environment. Industrial cultures are fed simple sugars and nitrogen sources, plus waste products like spent brewery yeast, cheese whey, and molasses.
If something like this works, it has the double benefit of pulling carbon from the air/water and turning all of the matter into food. With typical plants we grow on land, (generally) most of the plant isn't consumed so whatever carbon it stored is a waste product. In some countries, that waste is just burned and sent back into the atmosphere. But basically 100% of algae's mass is consumable.