Philosophical Vegan Forum

Hello,

First: The reading I did about this is years old, so sorry, no sources. But its more about the general idea anyway.
Back when I was writing my diploma thesis about a solder method for solar cells which I developed, I startet my introduction with the topic off alternative energie in general. When I looked for estimates when peak oil (the point where the maximum of oil "production" is reached. ) and other peak effects may occure, as well as estimated durations until we are depleted of traditional ressources. What shocked me is, that here in germany alot of the widely used manures are artifical and use propane or butane (forgot which one) gas. The estimeted amout of time till gas might become a problem in this paper was about 40 years (with a big emphasis on estimated). The paper discussed the probleme, that we have to use methane when the other gasses where used up and methane is harder to get and bad for the enviroment. Without artifical manure today population can't be fed.

Do you think the amount of manure our cattle gives, outweights the amount used for the crops used on them?
Where I lived as a teenager the cattle ate pasture /grass. The farmer collected the shit the cattle was making in the barn and used it for manure. I know that he gave them hay aswell. So all in all, when we take away cattle we may lose their shit and might get a problem with manure or do we not? Do you see artifical manures as a good vegan alternative to cattle shit? I honestly have my problems with them, because they use up traditional energy ressources.

There's no need for manure.

I'm not really sure that you're talking about.
Maybe you mean nitrate fertilizer?

There are energy requirements to produce fertilizer, as well as certain raw material requirements.
Energy input should really come from clean sources like nuclear power. Raw materials are easy to obtain.

Methane is a good source of raw materials for some chemical processes. Methane is only bad for the environment when you release it, not when you use it to make other things.

Yes, i mean fertilizer. Maybe I see a problem where none exists. When we reduce our cattle we have less natural fertilizer and less methane (collecting methane from shit is a thing, but i don't know how common it is). Methane extraction is often described as dangerous and alot of it gets into the air during the process. On the other hand maybe this points are overstated and only a problem in selected situations. I don't know. Some people I talked to about this made it sound like methane was this big scary thing, even when not burned.

It's hard to drill oil without releasing methane. I think you're mixing things up.

Burning methane isn't the main problem, it's releasing it unburned into the atmosphere that's the big problem.

Collecting methane from shit isn't a necessary source, and it's not very practical. Most of it just gets released into the atmosphere, which is a problem.