Meat is more useful than low energy density gasoline/ethanol mixes that have higher CO2 emissions than regular gasoline.
Cattle could easily be grass fed. You just wait an extra year before selling calfs at auction. However, selling calfs leads to more $/acre of grazing land, and more cows per acre as well. A week or two eating grain in a slaughterhouse (if sold as a full grown cow) is rounding error.
The big problem I see is that the availability of grazing land is plummeting in the US southwest, thanks to desertification and climate change.
That might be offset by marginal farmland being converted to grazing (due to climate change), but that'll reduce grain production.
Cattle could easily be grass fed. You just wait an extra year before selling calfs at auction. However, selling calfs leads to more $/acre of grazing land, and more cows per acre as well. A week or two eating grain in a slaughterhouse (if sold as a full grown cow) is rounding error.
The big problem I see is that the availability of grazing land is plummeting in the US southwest, thanks to desertification and climate change.
That might be offset by marginal farmland being converted to grazing (due to climate change), but that'll reduce grain production.