Cutting Methane Emissions (Research)

Finding safe, affordable, and beneficial ways to reduce the carbon footprint of producing milk

Image credit: Bigstock

Problem

Can greenhouse emissions from animal agriculture be reduced without compromising productivity?

Methane's atmospheric warming potential is as much as 2 8-36 times higher than that of carbon dioxide over 100 years.
The average dairy cow belches 350 pounds of methane each year as a natural byproduct of its digestion, accounting for approximately 2.7 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Findings

Animal scientists studied how 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP), a compound that inhibits the synthesis of methane in a cow's rumen, affected the cow's enteric methane emissions as well as milk production and quality.

Supplemented feed decreased the cow's methane emissions by about 29 percent without affecting the sensory qualities of the milk and also increased the milk fat percent and the feed efficiency per unit of milk yield.

Impact

The use of 3-NOP to supplement cattle feed provides a safe and economical way for farmers to affordably reduce the carbon footprint of cattle production and benefit from increased feed efficiency.

Cows quickly metabolize the small synthetic molecule, which falls apart into naturally occurring compounds present in the rumen.
The study is a critical step in the approval process for use of 3-NOP as a methane mitigant in ruminant production.

Related Research Area: Advanced Agricultural and Food Systems

Research Credit

Team

Alex Hristov, Troy Ott, Audino Melgar, M. T. Harper, J. Oh, F. Giallongo, M. E. Young, Stephane Duval, C. F. A. Lage, K. Nedelkov, S. E. Räisänen, H. Stefenoni, X. Chen

Participating Departments

Animal Science

Partners

DSM Nutritional Products

Competitive Funding

DSM Nutritional Products

Federal and State Appropriations

USDA NIFA Hatch Multistate Project PEN04664, Accession # 1017181

Emerging Discoveries

Curbing cow belches in the name of climate change mitigation

August 21, 2023

A Penn State livestock emissions expert has received a grant from the Greener Cattle Initiative to develop actionable options to mitigate enteric (intestinal) methane emissions from cattle — which are produced via belching.

Foundation grant to fund research on reducing methane emissions from livestock

April 04, 2023

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture has awarded a grant to a team in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences to fund research aimed at reducing enteric, or intestinal, methane emissions from cows and sheep, using plant and fungal sources.

Researcher gets $2M grant to test feed additives’ effect on methane emissions

February 09, 2023

Alex Hristov, Penn State distinguished professor of dairy nutrition, has received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct studies to determine whether supplementing the feed of lactating dairy cows with either 3-Nitrooxypropanol or a species of red seaweed reduces the amount of methane emitted by the animals in the long-term.

Existing technologies can help world meet agricultural methane targets by 2030

May 10, 2022

Amid the frequent bad news about climate change, some potentially good news has emerged: Existing technologies, diligently applied, could enable the world to meet the target set for reducing agricultural methane emissions by 2030, say researchers.

Feed supplement for dairy cows cuts their methane emission by about a quarter

February 20, 2020

The addition of 3-Nitrooxypropanol to the feed of dairy cows reduced their enteric methane emissions by about 25% in a recently published study — one in a series of Penn State studies of the investigational substance in the United States — which might be an early step toward it being approved for use in this country.

Correct dosage of methane-inhibiting additive in dairy cow feed shown in study

July 21, 2020

The optimum amount of a methane-inhibiting supplement in dairy cattle feed has been determined by an international team of researchers, indicating that widespread use of the compound could be an affordable climate change-battling strategy, if farmers embrace it.

Published Research

Full adoption of the most effective strategies to mitigate methane emissions by ruminants can help meet the 1.5 °C target by 2030 but not 2050

Arndt, C., Hristov, A. N., Price, W. J., McClelland, S. C., Pelaez, A. M., Cueva, S. F., Oh, J., Dijkstra, J., Bannink, A., Bayat, A. R., Crompton, L. A., Eugéne, M. A., Enahoro, D., Kebreab, E., Kreuzer, M., McGee, M., Martin, C., Newbold, C. J., Reynolds, C. K., ... Yu, Z. (2022). Full adoption of the most effective strategies to mitigate methane emissions by ruminants can help meet the 1.5 °C target by 2030 but not 2050. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(20), Article e2111294119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2111294119

BADGE

Dose-response effect of 3-nitrooxypropanol on enteric methane emissions in dairy cows.

Melgar, A., Welter, K. C., Nedelkov, K., Martins, C. M. M. R., Harper, M. T., Oh, J., Räisänen, S. E., Chen, X., Cueva, S. F., Duval, S., & Hristov, A. N. (2020). Dose-response effect of 3-nitrooxypropanol on enteric methane emissions in dairy cows. Journal of dairy science, 103(7), 6145-6156. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2019-17840

BADGE