bromoform

As commenters have noted previously, it seems like using synthetic bromoform would be cheaper and more scalable.

The active ingredient is bromoform, which might even be cheaper to dose than the raw algae.

AT and a number of other algae contain very low amounts of a compound called bromoform.

Bromoform in high amounts is toxic, but it's believed that bromoform in these trace amounts changes the chemical reaction being undertaken within the rumen such that methane is no longer a product.

Its volatility and environmental persistence makes bromoform's release, either as liquid or vapor, strongly inadvisable.

It only takes a little bit of bromoform to poison methanogenesis in rumen.

Seems like if we can manufacture the active chemical (bromoform) without seaweed, it'll be much more scalable.

And the chemical, bromoform, from seaweed only blocks this methanogenic metabolic pathway.

They write that they don't observe a decline of inhibition compared to a previous paper using pure bromoform but don't speculate on the reason.

Why don’t they just feed the bromoform compound responsible for the activity?

Also, to counter your point, it’s possible to add red seaweed to livestock feed which contains enough bromoform to counter around 80% of methane production.

But in seriousness, I'm not so OK with feeding animals bromoform or seaweed for that matter if that's a common component.

Or maybe they're already developing this with consumer branding/marketing in mind; "seaweed" sounds better than "bromoform."

"By just manipulating nitrogen and phosphorous, we have already seen that we can double the concentrations of bromoform in just a week," she added.

However, the sort of producers who cater to environmentally conscious meat consumers may want to be able to tout "seaweed dietary additive" rather than "bromoform dietary additive" in packaging and promotional material.

> I still think that there is a simple explanation for the 'reduction in methane' effect Yes - your "still" suggests to me you think that it is a mystery (apologies if i misunderstand), whereas i believe it is reasonably well understood - it's bromoform, aka tribromomethane, which inhibits methanogenesis in bacteria [0].

Bromoform is incredibly toxic, and possibly even a carcinogen.