- Cows belch a greenhouse gas called methane,
which is 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide,
at warming the atmosphere, producing global warming.
- These scientists are searching land and sea
for one big reason.
- We're here to collect some seaweed
to fight climate change.
- With just a sprinkle of the seaweed in the feed
of beef cattle, dairy cows, goats, or sheep,
we're able to reduce their enteric methane emissions by
over 90%.
- Livestock and their table manners
are responsible for nearly 15%
of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
- Almost without fail, every time I give a presentation,
someone walks up to me afterwards and asks if they can
use it on their brother or their family member.
The first time it was funny,
but, um, it becomes less original each time it's asked.
- While it may sound crazy,
if we want to help avert global climate catastrophe,
we probably have to tackle cow burps.
(cow belching)
- This is a weird one,
who is this product's end user?
- The end user of this product is the cows,
and so everything that we do on site, in the labs,
and out in the field, is cow-focused,
creating a product for them.
- Alexia Akbay is the founder
and CEO of Symbrosia, a company in Hawaii
that's creating a feed additive for cows.
- Cows consume grass for most of their waking hours,
and they need to break it down within their stomachs.
And in order to do that, they ferment the forage,
and they belch methane.
- Akbay's company is new,
but the idea has been around for a few years,
largely thanks to agriculture researcher,
Dr. Ermias Kebreab.
- Our team was the first to try
the seaweed additive in dairy cattle.
If we are able to reduce methane
by less than even 1% a year,
we could actually stop any more warming from methane,
then we could actually see, in a short term,
a cooling down of the planet.
- Kebreab's first seaweed experiments
blew all expectations out of the water.
- It directly inhibits the formation of methane
in the gut of the cow, the active metabolite in the seaweed
captures one of the carbon molecules
and doesn't allow it to form.
And then the seaweed acts as a prebiotic,
and decreases the amount of bacteria
that produce methane in the gut,
allowing for a prolongated effect.
- But Kebreab's work was largely contained
to the lab, so Akbay saw an opportunity
to build up a commercial operation,
and actually get a usable product to farmers.
- I think this is gonna be a really good spot.
- Currently, Symbrosia is looking to establish a seed bank,
by collecting samples of this special red seaweed,
known scientifically as 'asparagopsis taxiformis.'
- So we can find the asparagopsis out on the water.
We can also find it by walking along the rocks.
- Daisy Stock and Shey Dorji
are researchers at Symbrosia, and they've become experts
at looking for these tiny samples in Hawaii's big, open ocean,
that are going to help them grow a consistent product
back in the lab— and scale up their operation.
- To date, we've snorkeled probably the majority
of the coastline of four Hawaiian islands.
- We like to joke that it likes to grow
wherever is the hardest to reach.
So you really have to know where to find it.
- Once Stock and Dorji
collect samples they're happy with,
they bring it back into the lab.
- Once we bring in samples from the reef,
they're isolated just down to a few cells,
that you can't see visibly with your eye.
- We grow them in these little plates, and this is where
we can study how they perform in different conditions.
- This is a almost-finished product.
We're still working to optimize it for cattle consumption,
but it is ready to leave our facility at this stage.
- I think Symbrosia's seaweed feed additive provides
a really interesting flip in the narrative,
where instead of calling out these producers for doing harm,
we're enlisting them in creating a solution.
- In California, new laws are requiring
its massive livestock industry to cut methane emissions
by 40% by 2030.
Symbrosia expects more governments
and more companies
to follow their lead in the coming years.
- There are a number of Fortune 500 companies
that have set climate-based targets
to reduce their supply chain emissions by 50%
or become carbon-neutral in the next 10 years.
This could be quite impossible without solutions like ours.
- This research and Symbrosia's progress
are incredibly promising, but Symbrosia is small—
especially considering the sheer size of the problem.
- Currently, we can produce for about 100-150 cows at a time.
Over the next year, we'll be trying to ramp that up
to over 3,000 cows before moving on to a second facility.
- But there are a billion cows on the planet,
and demand for more is only going up.
- A number of large countries around the world
have growing middle classes, and so we'll be seeing
an increase in animal-protein consumption
despite many efforts to create plant-based protein sources.
- Because there are just so many cows,
we might soon see a whole lot more red seaweed farms.
Most likely, it's an issue that will take
some combination of answers from Symbrosia
to its competitors, to some stranger-looking proposals.
- The next step from my side is to make sure that
there is no unintended consequences happening.
It's a challenge for the companies to come up
with a consistent product— and sustainably enough—
so that it’s not too expensive for farmers to use as well.
- With Symbrosia, we really have the opportunity
to do high-quality research that gets scaled,
and then we see an immediate environmental impact
as a result of producing this product,
which is tackling the large issue of climate change.