Revolutionizing Climate Action: Harnessing Biotechnology for Sustainable Solutions
From Cow burping protector masks to Waste Coals, what are some of the biotech advancements to tackle Climate Change on a much larger scale? Yes, I'm talking to you, dear big MNCs and corporations.
A bit late but I am here! Welcome guys to the 2nd edition of Climate Talks for the year. And a happy women’s day!
How was February for you? With various celebrations of black culture and love throughout the month, mine ended on a good note with my friend’s wedding ceremony. We have known each other for 9 years and finally got to meet her after 5 years. Her husband being a pilot, meant most of his friends at the wedding all were from the aviation sector. While exchanging pleasantries and introductions, our occupations came up and then a playful blame game began where there were interesting discussions of the methane potency of cow burps surpassing the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from airplanes.
As a quiet listener, hearing people’s takes on Cows, etc. I’m glad to say this article was birthed from that. To put the doubts to rest, I went home and did some fact checking and found Statista’s 2022 climate data. It enlists India’s greenhouse gas emissions according to sectors and the leading share of Greenhouse Gas Emissions came from the transportation sector (32%) and agriculture, contributing about 22%.
The World Resource Institute as of 2022 declared the Energy sector as the largest contributor of the GHG emissions.
Sorry guys!
Well these statistics led me to dig deeper into other sources of information and pondered on why the Phase-Out method is not adopted much in the aviation industry as compared to the manufacturing sector. This is a method where a product is calculatedly being replaced with a better product in gradual steps and phases. Rwanda’s admirable plastic ban that began slowly in 2008 and led to a current 100% plastics ban among some Indian states like Indore and Ahmedabad are good case studies showing this method. Why can’t the same be adopted for the biggest GHG contributing sector? While this topic carries inner global political and economic under layers, the viability of these case studies showed that these eventually ended as a win-win situation for both the planet and the national economy.
This month’s article will highlight 3 large-scale, cutting-edge biotech solutions to help mitigate and adapt to Climate Change.
DIATOMS
Sometime last year, I got introduced to a company, Liquid Trees (then 1010 solutions), a water positive biotechnology company that explored the potential of diatoms in improving air quality and bioremediation to tackle Climate Change. To beat the rising air pollution problem in Belgrade, Serbia, Dr. Ivan Spasojevic and other scientists developed an innovative solution: the "liquid tree," which consists of an urban photo-bioreactor(Liquid 3) that harnesses the power of diatoms to improve air quality. Diatoms are fast growing microscopic unicellular organisms that occur naturally in water or moist habitats and are responsible for a large fraction of CO2 being exported from the atmosphere to the depths of sea waters, by attaching themselves to benthic substrates or the biodiversity beneath. These are great alternatives to highly polluted urban cities that have little or no trees to improve the air quality.
GREEN COAL
Currently fossil fuels are known to cause 2 major problems; increasing the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and causing air pollution leading to other innumerable health consequences. Biotech has introduced another innovative clean coal technology known as Green Coal. These are made from agricultural and municipal waste, thereby solving the 2 aforementioned environmental issues including another; Waste management. According to Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, was the first state to be commissioned to produce Green Coal in 2023. The NTPC Varanasi Energy Power Plant produces 70 tonnes of Green Coal from 200 tonnes of waste without waste burning. The waste gets processed inside a reactor using Macawber Beekay's specialized conversion technology (IIFL securities, 2023).
METHANE REDUCING TECHNOLOGY. STOCK FEED SUPPLEMENTS
Now to the Cow-Methane burping debacle.
Methane is the second most prevalent GHG after Carbon (di)oxide. In 2021, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) submitted an assessment showing Agriculture; Livestock emissions to be its main source. When livestock, predominantly cows ‘burp’ or ‘fart’, they release copious amounts of Methane into the atmosphere, thereby adding to the prevailing Climate Crisis. There have been several Innovative technology looking to minimize the potency of the Methane emissions from the Agriculture sector. There is a feed additive called Bovaer which cuts down methane burps by 30% (Bloomberg news, 2023) while a UK based Agritech company, Zelp has created a cow burp-catching mask, to reduce methane emissions by 60%. This is applicable to all livestock options and can easily measure the amount of methane produced in the cow and the amount oxidised by the capturing device..
Some start-ups such as Volta Greentech (Sweden), Irish Sea solutions (Ireland) and Rumin8 (Australia) are all listing Seaweeds as a feeding option to cows as they suppress the methane creating enzyme in Cow stomachs (Guardian, 2023).
In 2023, there was another ambitious $70- million donor funded initiative that aims to cut methane emissions by using the genome-editing tool CRISPR on microbes in the cows’ gut. This is a collaborative venture including scientists from University of California, Davis along with researchers from UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco. (UC Davis, 2023).
Agricultural biotechnology as well as Artificial Carbon capturing devices both have the power to adapt and address the everchanging effects of Climate Change through the creation of climate resilient crops and genetically engineered strains. In addition Carbon can be captured via several options; Direct Air Capture (DAC), Capture at Power Plants and through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). These were not mentioned as these processes can be capital intensive.
The acceptance of transgenic crops in India is an elusive topic as several safety assessments and approvals have to be made for successful commercialization in the markets. The Times, also raised valid points on the plausibility of introducing these methane reduction alternatives; and the necessity of government incentivisation and subsidies for the procurement of these solutions for small farmers.
A friend of mine always drummed this quote into me and I can say to an extent I live by;
“You don’t need to have it all figured out to take a step forward”- unknown
I am sure before the Cochin International Airport became the 1st solar powered airport in the world had lapses and imperfections in the beginning.
But they started.
What about the town in Kamikatzu, Japan that had open air burning waste disposal practices before transforming into Japan’s first zero waste municipality in order to meet its 2030 targets?
They started, didn’t they?
Are there more examples I missed?
Plans are never fully thought out and one can learn on the task, the importance is to take the first step, in phases, and enforcing in calculated steps. But are we ready to collectively acknowledge and enforce the need for a transition to cleaner fuels?
Till next month. Remember I’m rooting for you.
Monica Fatogun
Thank you Monica. This was very helpful in raising awareness about matters that I didn't know. I didn't even know that cow burp had so much of Methane.
Keep educating us. All the best
Very educative article. I had zero idea of the ideas you suggested and didn't even know cows were a major contributor to the climate crisis (lol). I agree with you that we should all take steps to start implementing measures to reduce or eliminate our current practices that have negative impact on our environment.