Methane (CH4) is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 and the release of 1 kg of CH4 into the atmosphere has the same heat trapping potential as that of 84 kg of CO2. The majority of CH4 currently being released into the atmosphere is through anthropogenic activities. This will change in the near future however when climate change is set to open up regions in which there are large carbon reservoirs which may be released through warming or through the action of methanogenic microbes. This presents a distinct challenge in which climate change can establish a positive feedback loop in which warming causes further release of methane in turn causing more warming.
Naturally methane in the atmosphere and in the soil is degraded through the action of methanotrophic microbes which break down and fix carbon or release it as CO2. These microbes are represented in almost every soil throughout the planet and either recruit methane from the atmosphere or directly when it is released by methanogenic microbes in the same soil. These methanotrophic bacteria can possess very different activity and ability to digest CH4 based on their evolutionary lineage.
We are a company dedicated to utilizing the natural action of methanotrophic microbes in the found throughout the world to help to address the pressing issue of methane release into the atmosphere. We do this through a number of techniques starting with the identification of high methane digestion capable methanotrophic organisms. These organisms can either be introduced into soils where climate change is accelerating the production of methane or the active protein sequences from the organisms can be put into the native methanotrophic soils in these regions.
CH4 Microbial Solutions 