In all of the discussion about greenhouse gases, the fact that certain gases are far more dangerous than others is often overlooked. Methane (CH4), in particular, is far more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2). Few realize that methane warms the atmosphere as much as 84 times more than CO2 over a 20 year period. Given this disparity, researchers have been looking for ways to mitigate the methane problem. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is very important, but methane may be even more important.
The chemistry of getting rid of methane is well understood. All that's necessary is to combine one molecule of methane with two molecules of oxygen, the result being one molecule of carbon dioxide and two of water. It's recently been reported that zeolites – a type of microporous mineral - might be used to achieve the conversion. The result, of course, is changing one type of greenhouse gas into another, but given the potency of methane, it may well make good sense. In fact, researchers have recently proposed some ways to do just that.
Sounds like a great idea, except that it isn't yet practical. Unfortunately, it may never be practical as the proposed technology depends upon implementing a tax on carbon. That doesn't make it a bad idea, just a somewhat unlikely one.
If our goal is to get rid of methane, there's a much better way to do it. Actually, two ways. Sixty percent of methane emissions are human caused; well, human and animal caused. The best way to reduce methane emissions is either to control the number of humans on the planet, the number of cattle, or both.
From Thomas Malthus onward, there have been repeated calls to control population growth. Hasn't happened yet, and it probably isn't going to happen in the future. If the goal is to control methane emissions, the better strategy is to control the amount of livestock in the world. It's an idea which sounds appealing, just very hard to do. The reason it's so hard isn't so much because the world's population is increasing, it's because of changes in the typical diet around the world.
The problem isn't in advanced countries such as the USA, Canada, the European Union, and Japan. Instead, it's in the developing world of Africa, Asia, and South America. Incomes are rising rapidly in these countries. When incomes rise, two things happen: 1) the average person consumes more calories each day; and 2) the typical diet includes more protein. The source of all of the additional protein? More and more cattle. The problem is that more cattle generate more greenhouse gases, especially methane.
The attached table from the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization shows what happens as countries develop. Total average daily calorie intake increases (T in chart), but calories from animals (A in chart) also increase. You can see that the average person in a developing country consumes far fewer calories from animal products than in places such as the USA. As countries advance from developing to industrialized (think places like China), the demand for animal protein grows significantly.
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Table 2. Vegetable and animal sources of energy in the diet (kcal per capita per day)
We end up with a three-part problem: 1) population increases; 2) increasing incomes result in higher demand for calories from animals; and 3) more cattle generate lots more greenhouse gases, especially methane, the most serious type for the environment. The real problem is to figure out how to provide animal protein to all of these new, wealthier consumers in the developing without the need for all the additional methane-spewing cattle. A number of companies are already pursuing the concept of "meatless meat". Two well known ones are Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. You may already have tried some of their products. They're using a number of different strategies. In this post I profile a company called Sustainable Bioproducts. It's already gotten backing from prominent investors such as Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Among Breakthrough's investors are Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. Sustainable Bioproducts fits the classic model of a startup business spun out of a university, in this case, Montana State University. Nothing especially unusual about that except the nature of the research done at the school. Montana State operates the Thermal Biology Institute (TBI). The Institute focuses its research on bacteria found in geysers and springs at Yellowstone National Park. As reported by National Geographic, the research originated in 1965 when Thomas Brock, a researcher from Indiana University, noticed "pink gelatinous masses of material, obviously biological, at surprisingly high temperatures" in Octopus Spring in Yellowstone National Park. The stringy organisms were growing at 180 degrees Fahrenheit, a complete surprise because previously it was thought that bacteria couldn't survive above 140 degrees Fahrenheit. A year later Brock returned to Yellowstone with a student named Hudson Freeze, and the two collected a different organism that Brock named Thermus aquaticus. When Brock and Freeze cultured Thermus aquatius, they found a DNA-copying enzyme that made polymerase chain reaction (PCR) possible. PCR is a critical technology in molecular biology, especially for copying DNA. In the early 1990's a University of Colorado microbiologist named Norman Pace led a team doing additional research in Yellowstone. They gathered samples in Obsidian Pool that showed many new life forms within Archaea, a domain of life distinct from bacteria. These organisms capable of surviving extreme temperatures are referred to as extremophiles. Montana State has created an entire institute to study the extremophiles. According to the school's website, "TBI has produced an aggressive research thrust focused on geochemistry and geothermal biology. The breadth of our research programs reflects the diversity of thermal environments found in Yellowstone, including projects focused on thermotolerant plants, fungi, protozoans, bacteria, archaea and viruses and the understanding of biochemical mechanisms and geochemical processes occurring at high temperatures." It goes on to say that researchers at TBI are doing research on "genomics, metabolic engineering, biofilms, hydrogen metabolism, sulfur reduction, nuclear magnetic resonance structural biology, proteomics, metal reduction and many others centered around microbes found in Yellowstone and other extreme environments." An important characteristic of some of these extremophiles is when "fed" certain common substances, they multiply rapidly, in a polymerase chain reaction-fashion. Mark Kozubal, a researcher at the school, found that the extremophile bacteria could be an "engine" to grow protein. He and a fellow named Thomas Jonas then formed Sustainable Bioproducts to exploit the discovery. Kozubal has obtained at least one patent and has a number of additional patent applications on file. The company has already raised a $ 33 million Series A round. Breakthrough Energy Ventures is one of the participants in the round. The company now operates out of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago. According to the company, to create the product, "it feeds common components of food such as starches or glycerin to the already high-protein microbes, which then quickly multiply. The resulting protein, like meat or soy, contains the nine amino acids considered essential to the human diet. But the end product wouldn't necessarily resemble meat. "It could be some things that are more meat-like," said Jonas, Kozubal's co-founder and CEO. "It can be savory; it can be sweet; it can be liquid; it can be dairy-like. While the product could take various forms, the key is that it is a high protein product that could provide a way to fulfill the demand for protein by the growing populations in the developing world. More importantly, it could provide that protein without the need to grow the world's livestock herd, and thus could avoid growing the world's methane footprint. The fact that the resulting product could take various forms could be a real advantage. It could be shaped into a range of tasty foods that aren't trying to be "pretend" meat, so there may not be the need to overcome the obvious objection from diners who already have well-formed ideas of what "meat" looks and tastes like. Of course, Sustainable Bioproducts may be able to create a tasty "meatless meat" version of the product, but it won't be essential. This is what I refer to as a "greenhouse gas avoidance strategy". Lots of efforts are underway around the world to convert existing energy generation away from sources such as coal, oil and natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These are certainly very necessary, but they aren't sufficient. That's because, as noted in previous posts, the developed world could do a great job of eliminating existing greenhouse gas emissions, but still not solve the problem because all the emissions eliminated from the developed world will be replaced by new emissions in the developing world. Preventing new greenhouse gas emissions in the developing world is equally important, especially preventing growth in methane emissions given their incredible potency. Approaches such Sustainable Bioproducts are really important for greenhouse gas avoidance. Like any early stage investment, Sustainable Bioproducts could easily "flame out", even if Jonas and Kozubal are successful at scaling up the technology to use extremophiles to produce mass quantities of edible protein. Only time will tell. The important thing to note, however, is that the underlying strategy – take university-based research and spin it out into start-up businesses – is a critical element in developing the portfolio of solutions to the huge problem of greenhouse gas emissions, and possibly a great way to reduce the methane greenhouse gas problem.
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