Startup Windfall Bio has developed microbes that can tackle some of the most challenging sources of methane.

Methane is about 83 times more potent than CO2 over its first 20 years in the atmosphere. While some of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers have pledged to significantly cut methane emissions by 2030, the biggest anthropogenic source is agriculture, particularly beef and dairy production. Those emissions have proven hard to avoid.

“It’s particularly hard because agriculture is so important, and we all need to eat,” said Stephanie Díaz

That’s where Windfall hopes to step in. Founded in 2022, the San Mateo, California-based company sells methane-eating microbes, or mems, to big methane producers, including farms, waste treatment facilities, landfills, and oil and gas producers. In addition to destroying methane, the process also produces organic fertilizer. The startup is currently piloting its technology with customers that include Whole Foods, which provides Windfall access to its network of dairy farmers.

Methane “has been a huge blindspot,” and mems can be one way of transforming the harmful emissions into a useful substance and revenue stream, said Windfall co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Josh Silverman.

He compared the microbes to yeast; mems like to eat methane the way yeast likes to eat sugar. Windfall’s mems use energy from the methane they eat to pull nitrogen out of the air, creating an organic fertilizer that customers can use on their own farms or sell for profit.

The technology is best suited for enclosed sources of methane, such as a dairy farm’s barn, tarp-covered manure lagoon or enclosed feedlot, where gas from the source can be easily vented out and treated. In an oil and gas facility, that might look like diverting a pipe of methane that otherwise would have been flared. In a landfill, it could mean taking methane from a well drilled into the structure or from cracks and leaks in the landfill cover.

At dairy operations, farmers can spread mems over a compost pile. The methane from the barn, lagoon or feedlot can then be piped over to the treated compost. For customers without access to direct compost, they can grow mems on any solid, inert surface, such as biochar or even plastic beads in a fiberglass tub, which can be reused. In the latter case, the transformed cells can be sprayed off and dried down into a high-nitrogen paste.

Silverman said that fertilizer made with Windfall’s mems is 50% cheaper than conventional organic fertilizer, and that the company’s main challenge now is keeping up with demand. That’s why the fundraiser came so quickly on the tail of Windfall’s $9 million seed round last year, he added. The company’s focus for the year ahead is scaling up its manufacturing process to start supplying commercial quantities of mems in 2025.

Source: 

Bloomberg (2024.4.8) Methane-Eating Microbes Show Promise for Wiping Out Planet-Warming Emissions