The previous 12 months have seen a surge of curiosity in methane, a strong greenhouse fuel that up to now is liable for round a 3rd of world warming. The marketplace for methane-reduction credit is booming, and a brand new emissions accounting technique provides corporations a extra holistic technique of assessing the influence of the fuel.
That momentum might quickly be boosted by the launch of Mission Methane, a brand new competitors from XPRIZE designed to speed up the progress of fledgling strategies for avoiding methane releases or eradicating the fuel from the environment.
The choice to prioritize a methane prize displays an consciousness that tackling the fuel can present near-term local weather advantages that might complement current methods to handle carbon dioxide, defined David Babson, XPRIZE’s government vice chairman for local weather, power and nature.
“Methane is the one to focus on to arrest warming shortly, and CO2 is the one to focus on to stabilize the local weather long run and to finish the long-term warming development,” he stated.
Why methane issues
Mission Methane was birthed on the annual assembly in Los Angeles in April 2024 of the XPRIZE Mind Belief, a bunch of greater than 100 advisers from academia, enterprise and different sectors. Round 10 potential prizes in local weather, power and nature had been mooted, together with one on methane. Mind belief consultants in these areas whittled the checklist all the way down to 4 over the summer time, which had been introduced at a second assembly, generally known as the conclave.
Round a month earlier than the group assembled, the significance of methane was acknowledged in a Nationwide Academies for Science, Engineering and Medication report on the fuel. Round two-thirds of launched methane leaves the environment after 12 years, however throughout that point its influence on warming is as much as 150 instances better than that of CO2. Which means chopping methane ranges could have an outsized and comparatively fast influence. The research, stated Babson, “highlighted the distinctive alternative to focus on methane because the greenhouse fuel that might arrest warming essentially the most shortly.”
The report added weight to arguments for a methane prize, as did testimony from Rob Jackson, an earth scientist at Stanford College who spoke on the conclave. “I’ve to present him quite a lot of credit score,” stated Babson. “He had such credibility when he spoke and was very eloquent.” When the votes had been counted, methane emerged as the subsequent XPRIZE precedence, alongside a girls’s’ well being competitors generally known as Ovarian Decoder.
Designing the prize
Babson is designing the competitors and elevating cash for the prize pot. Taking inspiration from the XPRIZE for carbon elimination, awarded in April to a firm that helps smallholder farmers draw down carbon, rivals in Mission Methane will reveal applied sciences that may forestall the discharge of a specific amount of methane in a yr, or take away the identical quantity from the environment. Babson expects it is going to be on the order of 100 tons — comparatively small, however the winner can even should reveal a believable path to scaling their expertise.
On the averted emissions aspect, Babson stated the main focus will likely be on dilute sources, reminiscent of livestock operations. Biotech corporations creating vaccines that disrupt the formation of methane in cows’ stomachs can be one kind of contender, he famous. Potential elimination applied sciences embody HVAC filters that react methane with oxygen to type CO2, a much less potent greenhouse fuel.
Initiatives that seize methane from level sources, reminiscent of disused oil wells, won’t qualify as a result of the applied sciences concerned are already market-ready, stated Babson. However the necessity to speed up use of point-source strategies was mentioned throughout an XPRIZE session at Trellis Affect 25, held final month in San Jose, California. Babson stated he got here away from the session satisfied of the advantages of rising the marketplace for extra mature methane applied sciences and is now engaged on a parallel funding mechanism for that, doubtless primarily based on an superior market dedication construction.
His precedence for now, nonetheless, is convincing donors to again Mission Methane. A prize fund of $20 million to $50 million can be ample to spur the innovation he hopes to see. “In an ideal world, we’d get that dedication later this yr and be able to launch the prize by late of Q1 or early Q2 of 2026,” he stated.
In the meantime, the proof continues to mount: A paper revealed final month in Science discovered that methane mitigation efforts have the potential to cut back the damages brought on by local weather change by greater than a trillion {dollars} by 2050, whereas costing solely one-sixth of that.