Bacteria That 'Eat' Methane Could Slow Global Heating, Study Finds

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).

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