Bill Gates Backs Australian Start-up Targeting Cow Burps

Tue Jan 24 2023
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Monitoring Desk

The climate technology start-up in Australia that intends to lower the methane emissions from cow burps has received funding from billionaire Bill Gates.

 Methane (CO2) is the most prevalent greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Methane is produced by livestock such as cows, goats, and deer as their stomachs break down tough grass fibers for digestion. Methane gas is produced during this fermentation process, most of which is emitted again.

Cow burps main cause of methane gas

 University studies show that feeding cows seaweed can dramatically reduce their methane emissions. Rumin8, a Perth-based start-up, is developing a dietary supplement derived from red seaweed that prevents the gas from being produced. It declared in a press release that Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which Gates formed in 2015, had led an investment in which it had raised $12 million (£9.7 million) for the start-up.

 Additionally, the investment firm has the support of Jack Ma, a Chinese businessman and co-founder of Alibaba, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. 

David Messina, managing director of Rumin8, expressed his satisfaction with the response from climate impact funds worldwide. He also stated that there is a genuine willingness to support solutions to enteric methane emissions from animals, which is excellent for Rumin8 because they can see the benefits of our technology.

To combat climate change, New Zealand proposed charging the greenhouse gases that farm animals emit through urination and burping. By 2025, farmers will begin to pay for agricultural emissions under a groundbreaking system. Agriculture is responsible for over half of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions, primarily methane.

Methane levels in the atmosphere hit record highs in 2019, around 2.5 times higher than during the pre-industrial era. Scientists are concerned because methane has a significant impact on global warming.

Individual methane molecules warm the atmosphere more potently than individual CO2 molecules. Methane is 28 to 34 times more warming than CO2 over a 100-year timeframe.

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