One Of The Worst Sources Of Methane Emissions May Shock You
By Andy Tully
4 hours ago
Fossil fuels may release
plenty of carbon dioxide, but they alone aren’t responsible for all of
the greenhouse gases blamed for global climate change.
But rice? This grain is so important to human nutrition that it is second only to corn in its volume of production. Yet it turns out to be one of the chief sources of methane emissions on the planet, according to a study published July 22 in the journal Nature.
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In fact, the study said, rice paddies are responsible for as much as 17 percent of the methane, or CH4, in the Earth’s atmosphere. And cultivation is growing to meet the increase in the world’s human population.
The methane is a natural byproduct of the decomposition of organic matter in the rice paddies. Because paddies are flooded, the report said, their “warm, waterlogged soil and exuded nutrients from rice roots provide ideal conditions for methanogenesis in paddies.” As a result, the world’s rice paddies emit between 25 million and 100 million metric tons of methane every year.
So
far, there’s little that can be done to remedy the emissions of
bubbling brooks and farting cows, but researchers at the Swedish
University of Agriculture have, through genetic modification, developed a
“high-starch low-methane-emission rice” whose roots, which decompose,
are smaller and the grains are bigger, providing greater nutritional
yield.
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In
a commentary accompanying the article in Nature, Paul Bodelier, a
microbial ecologist at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, wrote that
the genetically modified rice, or “GM rice,” provides “a tremendous
opportunity for more-sustainable rice cultivation.” In other words,
simultaneously more food and less pollution.
In a separate interview with MIT Technology Review,
Bodelier noted that humans on average eat about 150 pounds of rice per
person each year. As a result, as the world’s population grows, “[i]t is
expected that rice cultivation will need to increase.” And to
accomplish that without increasing methane pollution would be “quite
important,” he said.
Modifying
the genetic makeup of the rice was fairly simple. Chuanxin Sun of the
Swedish university and senior author of the study added a single gene
from barley to rice, then planted it in a field next to a conventional
rice field in China. Then for three years his team measured the methane
emissions and the nutritional yields from both conventional and GM
plants.
The
results: Sun reported that the GM plants produced 43 percent more grain
per plant, and also had smaller roots and thus fewer methane-emitting
bacteria around them. The reduction in methane emissions was
particularly effective during the summers, when they were down to 0.3
percent of total emissions from the plant’s decomposition, compared to
10 percent emissions in the conventional crop.
The reduction in
methane emission was less striking in the autumn, Sun wrote, but still
significant, at about half the plants total emissions.
But
Sun cautioned that larger trials are needed before science can draw any
concrete conclusions about the value of the genetically modified rice.
In the meantime, if you’re worried about climate change, expand your
focus beyond petroleum and coal to include your next dish of curried
lamb on rice.
By Andy Tully of Oilprice.comMore Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
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One Of The Worst Sources Of Methane Emissions May Shock You
While many are focused on the oil, gas and transportation industries as major contributors to global emissions, there is one food source which produces a worrying amount of methane
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