Bacteria That 'Eat' Methane Could Slow Global Heating, Study Finds (theguardian.com) 55
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Methane is a potent greenhouse gas emitted from energy (natural gas and petroleum systems), industry, agriculture, land use and waste management activities. Now a group of researchers from California University Long Beach are proposing a method of removing methane by using a group of bacteria known as methanotrophs to naturally convert methane to carbon dioxide and biomass. All the bacteria in this group "'eat' methane, removing it from air and converting part of it to cells as a source of sustainable protein," according to the lead researcher, Mary E Lidstrom. Lidstrom's team have found a strain of bacteria within this group called methylotuvimicrobium buryatense 5GB1C that can remove methane efficiently even when it is present in lower amounts. If it became widespread, the technology has the potential to help slow global heating, the researchers said.
Typically, this group of bacteria thrive in environments with high levels of methane (between 5,000 and 10,000 parts per million (ppm)). The normal concentrations in our atmosphere have much lower levels of only about 1.9 ppm of methane. But certain areas such as landfills, rice fields and oilwells emit higher concentrations of about 500 ppm. "Bacteria that rapidly eat methane at the higher concentrations found around cattle herds, etc could make a huge contribution to cutting methane emissions, especially from tropical agriculture," said Euan Nisbet, professor of Earth sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London, commenting on the findings of the study.
The strain's high methane consumption rate is probably due to a low energy requirement and greater attraction for methane – more than five times more than that of other bacteria, according to the study. "The bacteria oxidise the methane to CO2 (a much less powerful greenhouse gas) and so you can even use the exhaust to pump into greenhouses and grow tomatoes," said Nisbet. "The biggest barrier to implementation now is technical: we need to increase the methane treatment unit 20-fold. If we can achieve that, then the biggest barriers become investment capital and public acceptance. We believe we could have field pilots tested within three to four years, and scale up would then depend on investment capital and commercialization," said Lidstrom. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Typically, this group of bacteria thrive in environments with high levels of methane (between 5,000 and 10,000 parts per million (ppm)). The normal concentrations in our atmosphere have much lower levels of only about 1.9 ppm of methane. But certain areas such as landfills, rice fields and oilwells emit higher concentrations of about 500 ppm. "Bacteria that rapidly eat methane at the higher concentrations found around cattle herds, etc could make a huge contribution to cutting methane emissions, especially from tropical agriculture," said Euan Nisbet, professor of Earth sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London, commenting on the findings of the study.
The strain's high methane consumption rate is probably due to a low energy requirement and greater attraction for methane – more than five times more than that of other bacteria, according to the study. "The bacteria oxidise the methane to CO2 (a much less powerful greenhouse gas) and so you can even use the exhaust to pump into greenhouses and grow tomatoes," said Nisbet. "The biggest barrier to implementation now is technical: we need to increase the methane treatment unit 20-fold. If we can achieve that, then the biggest barriers become investment capital and public acceptance. We believe we could have field pilots tested within three to four years, and scale up would then depend on investment capital and commercialization," said Lidstrom. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
So Eat More Beano? (Score:2)
Guess that will help.
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I wanna know how they're going to get the the bacteria to stay up in the troposphere where the methane is.
...oxidizing methane to CO2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: ...oxidizing methane to CO2 (Score:1)
Yes, but you have to remember that deriving and benefits from petrochemicals, in any form, in the service of whatever ultimate purpose, is categorically evil and cannot be countenanced, even if it is a side benefit of something that you were going to do anyway.
So don't be surprised if energy-intensive methane bacteria farming becomes the Preferred Alternative to simply burning methane and running a turbine with the exhaust gases.
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Dumping more carbon into the atmosphere is stupid. We have legions of scientists who can point to evidence. But that doesn't stop you climate change deniers from claiming it isn't a problem. Somehow, only non-trained people such as yourself know more than the scientists.
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They claim to have something they call "common sense", which is what scientists lack according to their doctrine.
Personally, I think we're looking at yet another example of words changing meaning. It seems "having common sense" is now the politically correct phrase for "being dumb as a doorknob and refusing to rectify that".
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Its not that common sense doesn't exist. What someone finds the intuitively right answer IS often (even usually) the right answer to a problem. The issue is that some people then determine that because its usually right, then the intuitive answer must ALWAYS be right, and any evidence to the contrary is bogus intellectual nonsense from people who lack this common sense.
The reality is that scientists do indeed have common sense, but they also are smart enough to know that its not always right, so they veri
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The reality is that scientists do indeed have common sense, but they also are smart enough to know that its not always right, so they verify things, note when the intuitive answer is incorrect, and then dig deeper.
Almost but not quite. You left out a few relevant factors.
Personal bias - despite attempts to eradicate it, it still exists. A scientist who has their reputation staked on a particular theory or outcome will tend to favor that outcome, disregard outcomes that don't agree with their position, or both. The recent LK-99 "room temp superconductor" is an example of this.
Funding bias - Scientists don't work for free, and even if they did, research itself is an expensive endeavor. This requires funding from ext
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It does not. It exchanges methane for CO2, it does not "dump more carbon" into the atmosphere. Besides, carbon is not the issue, greenhouse effects are. Removing one greenhouse gas in exchange for another with a 2 order of magnitude reduction in greenhouse effect is a great improvement. Maybe you'll learn this when you graduate to high school.
"So, given a choice between turning methane into CO2 by using it to produce energy and turning it into CO2 by feeding bacteria, I'll take the one that turns a probl
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Dumping more carbon into the atmosphere is stupid. We have legions of scientists who can point to evidence. But that doesn't stop you climate change deniers from claiming it isn't a problem. Somehow, only non-trained people such as yourself know more than the scientists.
It appears that the comment you're responding to is more of a complaint about greenwashing (and greenwashing that is actually worse for the environment than just burning the methane) rather than any kind of climate change denialism, but don't let that get in the way of proving his point for him.
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Yeah, that post wasn't informed by your personal biases.
What the summary didn't discuss, but the publication did, is in what applications bacteria might be an option where there otherwise isn't any.
"Most proposed methane mitigation solutions are focused on decreasing emissions (5), and these are important goals. However, not all methane emissions are amenable to reduction, and it has been argued that emission reduction strategies must be augmented by methane removal to slow global warming by 2050 (6–8
Re: ...oxidizing methane to CO2 (Score:2)
Every one of my opinions is informed in some part by my personal biases and every one of your opinions is informed in some part by yours.
When I write or post shit under my real name for my real job where I'm paid to give professional opinions instead or personal ones, I tend to leave out the inflammatory language and confine my arguments for and against $whatever to something traceable to a mathematical proof or a real-life measurement.
I wish the same were true of famous people whose performance metric enta
Re:...oxidizing methane to CO2 (Score:4)
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Today I learned: Google's global headquarters is built on a garbage dump, which explains a whole lot of things about the level of quality.
Re: ...oxidizing methane to CO2 (Score:2)
Yes, but you have to find it first. We can and do find, and then burn the vast majority of methane, however, what we canâ(TM)t economically find or catch them ends up in the atmosphere as a terrible problem.
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First you have to get it to a concentration where it actually burns. Details matter.
Of course no side effects or downsides (Score:4, Insightful)
like the bateria evolving and starting to eat other things as well.
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This isn't the first bacteria to eat something.
Re:Of course no side effects or downsides (Score:4, Informative)
One of the early lessons I learned as an undergraduate taking microbial physiology is that there are all sorts of microorganisms out there that will consume just about any energy containing substrate you can think of, to include plastics, styrofoam, petrochemicals, you name it. You just have to provide sufficient substrate, temperature and in some cases the proper atmosphere.
(Aside, this was one of my favorite classes. We were each tasked with isolating and characterizing the microbe of our choice, based on substrates we could easily obtained and were interested in. I got a few buckets of muck from an oil spill and worked on isolating bacteria that break down crude oil. Someone else used foam cushions from cars, another worked with plastics. Anyway, it felt like we were all back in elementary school all over again, what with working on soil samples and little dirt projects.) There are all sorts of tricks to getting this to work, but mainly bacteria are finicky eaters so getting them to do this stuff in specialized environments is nowhere near as hard as getting them to do it out in the open with sun, variable humidity, temp, o2 levels, etc.
But back to the point: If you are worried about what bacteria can eat, you probably don't want to know what is in the soil, air, and even on your skin right now.
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But back to the point: If you are worried about what bacteria can eat, you probably don't want to know what is in the soil, air, and even on your skin right now.
Not even just on your skin, but inside of your intestines as well. A lot of the microbes we have living in and on us have something of a symbiotic relationship and we'd be worse off without them. Even the stuff that lives on our skin often keeps worse stuff from setting up there even if it doesn't provide more direct benefits.
Weaponization (Score:2)
Eat methane.. (Score:2)
and poop what?
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Diamonds.
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CO2 and water, most likely. It's what you can convert CH4 easiest into and with the most net energy output.
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And the article says cell proteins, so some carbon is actually removed. Of course, not pooped out but then CO2 and water are not either!
Half-life (Score:4, Informative)
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Not true, it will slowly dissolve into the ocean in about 10 years, merely destroying marine life instead of heating the planet
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Also not (necessarily) true. Dissolved CO2 can be consumed by algae and seagrasses in the ocean, converting it to biomass -- where carbon remains largely sequestered when the organism dies -- and oxygen.
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Well, it's half life in the atmosphere is 8.6 years ... and then it vanishes into thin air? Or does it break apart into CO2 and H2O?
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Although methane is 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2, its half-life in the atmosphere is 8.6 years. And CO2 stays there forever.
Methane breaks down into mostly CO2.
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it's odd that some sources report 300 to 1000 years for CO2 remaining in the atmosphere to others reporting 5 years, primarily due to the vast amount recycled by the oceans.. 5 years means the methane lasts longer. CO2 is plant food.
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CO2 is plant food.
CO2 near the surface of the planet is plant food. But there's a lot of CO2 that isn't near the surface.
Preventing methane leaks (Score:2, Insightful)
A more effective way to reduce methane emissions in the very short term? Regulate the methane extraction industry better.
In the slightly longer term, we can reduce methane emissions from another
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"It's also claimed that much of the leakage is easily preventable & in many cases profitable but the industry isn't interested."
You sound really informed.
"A more effective way to reduce methane emissions in the very short term? Regulate the methane extraction industry better."
What regulating body? Different offenders are in very different jurisdictions. You think there are no regulations anywhere?
"So far, the animal agriculture industry has been calling all the shots & protecting their subsidies,
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Claimed falsely. (Score:2)
It's also claimed that much of the leakage is easily preventable & in many cases profitable but the industry isn't interested.
Claimed falsely. Until very recently it was a bitch to find the leaks, even the giant ones. A year or so back NASA came up with a satellite that could map methane emissions, qualitatively and quantitatively (i.e. find the big ones.)
Now that they can get a map of where there are leaks and how big they are (even if not down to the foot), we'll get to see how interested they are
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Also: a notice from a regulatory agency saying "Here's a list of big leaks that look like they're from your equipment and how big each is" Carries the subtext "We're watching you. If they're still leaking next year, expect to pay a fine if you can't prove it's not yours."
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Another 1-Shot Solution (Score:2)
These "one-shot" solutions make for great reading on slashdot and other sites, but they seldom look at the problem full circle. It's great they've found bacteria that eats methane, but once you've got enough of the stuff distributed in a way that makes a useful difference, what effect will it have on the surrounding biomes? Are we trading one problem for a greater one? Perhaps a lesser one? Is it a total panacea or an epic mis-step?
I think this is how we ended up with plastic bags in our rivers and ocea
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"I think this is how we ended up with plastic bags in our rivers and oceans."
It grew as an unintended consequence of releasing bacteria?
"Is it a total panacea or an epic mis-step?"
Almost certainly no for either case. Sounds like a question arrived at in a bar after a couple of pitchers.
Once it is in protein form... (Score:1)
Snowball Earth here we go (Score:3)
Earth was much much hotter and colder than now. During one phase of oxygenation phase of the atmosphere, we had a runaway cooling period that gave rise to Snowball Earth where only a small sliver around the equator are ice free. Whenever someone mention Geological climate engineering, that always pops up in my mind.
Methane emissions (Score:2)
The article claims "The agriculture sector is the largest source of methane emissions due to livestock manure" and then "To implement methane-eating bacteria on a mass scale, thousands of high-functioning reactors will be needed." I'm not clear on what these reactors are, do they digest livestock manure? If so it seems feasible to have them at feed lots and pig/chicken farms. But apparently the methane is converted to CO2, what would they do with that?
Meanwhile the energy sector is responsible for almost as
Re: Methane emissions (Score:2)
I have read people calling to stop burning biomass, but fungi and bacteria and animals always convert it to CO2 anyway, which plants reabsorb. It is either this or it gets sequestered in the ground like peat. The ONLY thing which raises planetary carbon is taking old sequestered plant material out of the ground from the Triassic when it was 140 degrees on a summer day because of all the extra carbon.
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I agree that burning all that fossil fuel into the atmosphere is the biggest problem. According to the various monitoring agencies however, human agricultural activities like raising farm animals does convert sequestered carbon into methane emissions as well. And it is the largest emitter of that gas, but only slightly more than oil and gas operations.
That's the beautiful part (Score:2)
When winter rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.