After two years of debate, the New Zealand legislature yesterday voted to adopt changes in its emissions trading scheme (NZ ETS) proposed in November.
The adoption of the scheme will mean carbon offsets by forest owners will have to trade their carbon credits locally instead of exporting them to Europe. It also has huge implications for the livestock industry.
Unlike the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, though, the NZ scheme will include all six greenhouse gases identified in the Kyoto Protocol: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).
The biggest hurdle to date has been the issue of methane being emitted from cattle. Bovines typically lose around 6% of their ingested energy through methane emissions.
Collectively, sheep and cattle produce between 400 and 600 million tons of methane per year, which is a carbon equivalent of around 10 billion tons of CO2.
In fact, according to a recent UN report, rearing cattle actually produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars.
Initially, the government and the NZ Farmers Association planned to simply follow the US EPA’s AgSTAR Program to recycle waste manure. However, this wouldn’t work so well in New Zealand where sheep and cattle are grass fed (free range) rather than grain fed (where their first look at the outside world is the trip to the abattoir).
But thanks to a grant from the New Zealand Climate Change Information Agency (NZ CIA), a part of the Ministry for the Environment, New Zealand’s own Sheep Research Foundation developed two new methods for harvesting the methane from livestock.
First, all livestock will be fitted with manure catchers similar to the horse bun bag. These will be fitted with an electronic catch which will automatically trigger when the livestock are within 5m of a predetermined position for manure collection.
Second, to capture the belching — responsible for more than half of the methane emissions, livestock will be fitted with carbon filter gas masks. A series of balances allow the mask to open when in feeding position and close when in “chewing the cud” mode.
These WWI technology masks capture 80% of the CH4 emitted if changed every day.
The special design, which reduces the permeability of the filters as they absorb methane, will reduce the oxygen intake of the animal and make it easier to catch and replace the filter.
Over time, the livetock will learn to head to the filter change location and either have their filters changed by a farm hand, or change their own filter. According to the head researcher, Cliff Rogering, sheep can be trained to do just about anything.
Of course, this could all be unnecessary in the end, thanks to a team of New Zealand researchers who mapped the sheep flatulence genome and are working on a vaccine. (My girlfriend has already pre-ordered one for me).
This, combined with flatulence retarding cashew oil and new low flatulence grasses could reduce bovine emissions to that of Le Pétomane.
While I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to global warming and supposed solutions, for once I’m pleasantly surprised to see government doing something well, and raising the level of respect the world has for our Kiwi friends.
Cheers,
P
