Nebraska Legislature - Special Committee - Climate Change Seminar - Animal Science Research Initiatives

Dr. Galen Erickson Author

06/08/2016 Added

204 Plays

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Seminar on Climate Change for the Climate Change Seminar for Elected Officials of the Nebraska Legislature - Animal Science Research Initiatives

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[00:00:01.788]So beef cattle are pretty important
[00:00:04.752]to the state of Nebraska
[00:00:06.104]and so I feel blessed to be here
[00:00:07.857]at the University of Nebraska
[00:00:08.963]and beef's a major priority area for us
[00:00:10.832]in terms of research.
[00:00:13.913]In some respects we're interested
[00:00:15.319]in decreasing what's produced by cattle naturally,
[00:00:20.945]quantifying what's produced in our normal systems
[00:00:24.390]and then figuring out ways to increase methane
[00:00:28.755]but using it from manure and bio-gas generation.
[00:00:32.300]So I'm gonna briefly discuss that
[00:00:34.660]but always with pictures
[00:00:36.556]so you don't have to worry to much.
[00:00:38.589](audience laughing)
[00:00:39.769]We've tried some innovative ways.
[00:00:41.794]My background's in nutrition
[00:00:44.169]so I'm interested in how we feed cattle
[00:00:46.335]on managed nutrients that they consume and excrete better,
[00:00:49.513]that's really my interest area.
[00:00:51.918]So I joke with people, I'm a cattle dietitian,
[00:00:54.390]most people know what dietitians are.
[00:00:55.937](audience laughing)
[00:00:57.524]So we have tremendous research facilities
[00:00:59.398]as part of the university,
[00:01:00.792]obviously those are off-campus.
[00:01:02.452]So we've been figuring out ways
[00:01:03.528]so that when cattle stick their head in these gates
[00:01:05.682]they can only open up one
[00:01:07.105]cause they gotta key,
[00:01:08.446]so we get to prevent which ones,
[00:01:10.551]or control which ones they have access to.
[00:01:13.310]When they stick their head in there
[00:01:14.734]it's an enclosed space,
[00:01:16.305]turn on the pumps and we fill these little bags
[00:01:18.458]with breath that they're respiring
[00:01:20.818]and that's one way to measure methane.
[00:01:23.022]It's not great, it's a pretty crude way
[00:01:25.231]but it worked pretty well.
[00:01:27.095]The reason that's better though
[00:01:28.156]is this is one of the more common ways,
[00:01:30.231]which is you put cattle literally
[00:01:31.557]in a, they call it a head-box,
[00:01:33.808]there's feed and water in there,
[00:01:35.305]he's eating and then you measure him
[00:01:36.976]throughout the whole day
[00:01:38.393]with how much oxygen's coming in
[00:01:40.724]and how much CO2 and methane's going out.
[00:01:43.691]That's great but you can imagine cattle
[00:01:45.582]don't really like being in this little trough, right?
[00:01:48.750]So they don't do quite normal
[00:01:50.591]and you can only measure them for a couple days.
[00:01:53.310]So now along with the University of California
[00:01:56.955]and Michigan State, they're the only three places
[00:01:59.412]where we've developed a room
[00:02:01.988]where we put groups of animals in there,
[00:02:04.681]measure air coming in
[00:02:06.242]and then CO2 and methane going out.
[00:02:10.657]There's a sensor by these fans
[00:02:12.853]so that you can measure a group of 10 to 15 or 20 animals
[00:02:16.929]in a more quote unquote normal environment.
[00:02:20.980]We've been part of a large methane focus grant
[00:02:23.975]to decrease how methane cattle are naturally producing.
[00:02:28.106]Cattle are naturally producing that methane
[00:02:30.192]because of the bacterial process
[00:02:32.120]that's in their digestive system.
[00:02:34.194]So it is a natural process, unfortunately,
[00:02:36.835]whenever it's natural it's kind of hard to manipulate,
[00:02:41.271]so we're trying.
[00:02:42.931]As part of that grant though,
[00:02:44.267]it was an integrated grant,
[00:02:45.661]so I have an extension appointment
[00:02:47.917]and we just had a methane conference
[00:02:50.105]a couple weeks ago.
[00:02:51.556]And focused on it for beef producers
[00:02:53.532]on here are things that have been tried
[00:02:55.636]that you could do differently
[00:02:57.032]to decrease methane production by cattle.
[00:02:59.667]There aren't many good ways yet,
[00:03:01.858]so we don't have a lot of good options.
[00:03:04.292]Part of that grant we did a survey
[00:03:05.859]of producers in the state of Nebraska
[00:03:07.402]and I guess I would make a comment,
[00:03:09.679]I get the impression especially from the earlier surveys
[00:03:12.348]that crop producers are particularly more open
[00:03:15.580]to discussing climate change
[00:03:17.397]than maybe beef producers are.
[00:03:19.420]Our response from beef producers surveys
[00:03:24.184]was almost perfectly bi-modal,
[00:03:27.860]meaning about half the producers
[00:03:29.708]thought we were crazy for exploring it
[00:03:31.531]and about half thought it was the greatest thing ever,
[00:03:34.080]does that make sense?
[00:03:35.292](audience laughing)
[00:03:36.174]That probably means we're about right,
[00:03:37.849]right if half of them ...
[00:03:41.032]But you know why I think that,
[00:03:42.616]so I'm bringing this up just as a side note,
[00:03:44.166]I think many beef producers are a little sensitive
[00:03:46.017]to climate discussions only because beef get implicated
[00:03:50.167]heavily as a problem, not a solution.
[00:03:54.017]In the U.S. they account for about 4%
[00:03:56.327]of total greenhouse gas emissions.
[00:03:58.125]Globally it's higher, but in our U.S. systems
[00:04:00.582]it's not that high,
[00:04:01.804]but beef producers feel like they're getting beat on some.
[00:04:06.454]Like any good extension project
[00:04:08.502]our information's available online
[00:04:11.181]for producers and others.
[00:04:14.844]Second area I want to discuss
[00:04:16.970]is maybe what else is normal
[00:04:18.949]about our beef production system?
[00:04:22.107]Everybody hopefully appreciates
[00:04:24.058]that we have a lot of cattle in Nebraska.
[00:04:26.400]We finish at any one time,
[00:04:28.420]we have about 2 1/2 million head of cattle on feed,
[00:04:31.005]we finish about 5 million head.
[00:04:33.462]We would be number one or two essentially close with Texas.
[00:04:37.699]It is the biggest component
[00:04:39.410]of ag revenue in the state of Nebraska.
[00:04:42.397]Obviously we're a big corn producer
[00:04:44.505]which helps support that feedlot industry
[00:04:46.438]and we're a big ethanol producer.
[00:04:48.157]My point is Nebraska's normal,
[00:04:51.065]from my perspective,
[00:04:52.502]normal ag production system
[00:04:54.047]is a large ethanol complex,
[00:04:55.578]a large corn complex
[00:04:56.958]and a large beef complex
[00:04:58.576]which are quite frankly closely tied.
[00:05:00.907]Now why does that matter?
[00:05:02.357]I'm gonna get to that.
[00:05:03.776]That matters because one of the benefits
[00:05:06.159]for beef cattle in Nebraska
[00:05:07.949]is actually having an ethanol industry.
[00:05:11.703]And it's gonna come back
[00:05:12.913]to relate to greenhouse gas in just a second.
[00:05:15.305]This graph though is from '08 to last summer
[00:05:19.243]and this line right here
[00:05:21.271]says that if all those dots run that line
[00:05:24.445]that means producers would buy distillers grains,
[00:05:27.892]this by-product from ethanol plants
[00:05:29.689]at exactly the same price as corn.
[00:05:32.378]So notice that in the black is dry,
[00:05:35.184]the blue is modified and the red is wet,
[00:05:37.763]just three different kinds of distillers
[00:05:39.451]that many of these ethanol plants
[00:05:40.804]produce across the state.
[00:05:43.984]Notice that many times these prices
[00:05:46.495]that the producers are buying distillers grains at
[00:05:48.607]is cheaper than corn.
[00:05:51.147]The red line is from our research
[00:05:53.078]and what we think the wet stuff's worth.
[00:05:56.062]The blue line's what we think the modified's worth,
[00:06:00.026]so what's my point?
[00:06:02.757]Producers are buying it here
[00:06:04.883]and it's worth this,
[00:06:06.358]it makes 'em 50 to $70 more per head
[00:06:09.332]on a steer which is a lot of money.
[00:06:12.381]It's a big deal for our beef producers in the state.
[00:06:15.516]So what?
[00:06:16.706]Now here's how it relates.
[00:06:19.278]You don't have to worry too much about the two lines.
[00:06:21.294]This line is what we modeled,
[00:06:23.326]the other line is what we measured.
[00:06:25.491]This is the percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
[00:06:29.206]from a corn, ethanol, cattle system in Nebraska,
[00:06:34.227]relative to gasoline.
[00:06:36.340]So my point is that if you are a ethanol plant
[00:06:39.404]and a beef producer and a corn farmer in Iowa,
[00:06:42.262]which is where I grew up so I can pick on them,
[00:06:46.096]you have to do this.
[00:06:47.479]So your complex, you reduce greenhouse gas emissions
[00:06:50.202]by about 45%, which is great,
[00:06:52.880]relative to gasoline.
[00:06:54.657]If you're in Nebraska and you have a lot of cattle,
[00:06:56.991]right next door to the ethanol plant
[00:06:59.084]and you're feeding wet distillers grains
[00:07:00.808]you reduce greenhouse gas emissions
[00:07:02.640]from Nebraska's complex by roughly 60%.
[00:07:08.254]So having cattle and ethanol co-located
[00:07:10.372]is a pretty good thing
[00:07:12.130]from an overall ag system perspective.
[00:07:14.318]Why is that?
[00:07:17.046]Main reason for this difference
[00:07:18.579]is cause ethanol plants have to put in energy
[00:07:21.423]and therefore produce,
[00:07:23.399]to make dry distillers grains,
[00:07:25.899]if an ethanol plant--
[00:07:27.246]Go ahead.
[00:07:28.079]My question is why does it reduce
[00:07:29.447]the greenhouse gas emissions?
[00:07:30.882]Even more than dry, or more than gasoline?
[00:07:33.315]I'm not worried about the wet versus dry,
[00:07:34.931]I'm just wondering why does using distillers grains
[00:07:38.024]reduce the greenhouse gas emissions compared to gasoline?
[00:07:42.140]That's what I keep hearing you saying.
[00:07:44.182]Yes, that's based primarily on work done 10 years ago
[00:07:46.733]by Ken Casman and Adam Liska
[00:07:49.491]and it's been documented that if you burn gasoline
[00:07:52.843]versus taking corn, growing the corn,
[00:07:55.866]making it into ethanol
[00:07:57.367]and then burning ethanol in your vehicle,
[00:07:59.463]this is renewable, this one's not
[00:08:01.457]and so it reduces how much carbon emissions
[00:08:03.522]you have relative to just the ethanol corn complex.
[00:08:08.386]My excitement wasn't that though,
[00:08:09.828]my excitement is that you have cattle
[00:08:12.322]and you can make it and use the wet stuff
[00:08:14.676]that's a benefit, but yes, it is good no matter what.
[00:08:21.260]Okay last thing then I guess to discuss
[00:08:23.610]something that we're trying
[00:08:25.506]which is really not, not common
[00:08:28.460]and may not ever be adopted
[00:08:29.951]but we're trying it.
[00:08:31.609]This is what's commonly called,
[00:08:33.328]remember this was Nebraska before,
[00:08:35.301]corn, ethanol plant, cattle,
[00:08:38.314]now if you add in a digester
[00:08:41.478]for the manure on the cattle
[00:08:43.405]it's what's commonly called a closed-loop
[00:08:45.475]so now you can produce bio-gas from the manure.
[00:08:48.246]That's a closed-loop system.
[00:08:50.894]What we're also trying
[00:08:53.273]is taking it another step further,
[00:08:55.542]so we're calling it a super-loop
[00:08:57.533]instead of a closed loop,
[00:08:59.445]and putting algae into this system
[00:09:01.927]so actually you digest manure,
[00:09:04.083]produce bio-gas to burn
[00:09:06.775]so you can make manure into methane
[00:09:08.957]and then recycle some of those nutrients further
[00:09:11.336]to produce algae
[00:09:12.758]which may have promise in the future, may not.
[00:09:16.563]We've done a lot of research
[00:09:18.019]supported by the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences.
[00:09:20.837]This picture I think's telling,
[00:09:22.601]this is good old manure-water,
[00:09:24.714]looks nice right, it's brown.
[00:09:26.884]This is the clear one behind it
[00:09:30.303]is what you would normally raise the algae on,
[00:09:33.172]after six days this one looks green
[00:09:35.130]and this one still looks like dirty water,
[00:09:37.459]by day 21 there's no difference.
[00:09:39.701]My point is algae can grow well
[00:09:42.064]even on digested manure
[00:09:43.938]so that's why we're thinking about
[00:09:45.129]trying to make algae fit into this Nebraska system.
[00:09:49.188]From funding from the Environmental Trust
[00:09:52.349]as well as from the Energy Sciences Center
[00:09:54.735]we have a little larger scale ponds
[00:09:57.566]up at Mead at our Ag Research and Development Center
[00:10:01.277]trying to test that theory.
[00:10:03.690]With that I would take any questions or comments.

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Nebraska Legislature - Special Committee - Climate Change Seminar - Animal Science Research Initiatives

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