Cows are a significant source of methane emissions, mainly because of their unique digestive system. Milk and beef cows are ruminants, which means they have a specialized stomach chamber (called the rumen), which houses billions of microbes that facilitate the breakdown of fibrous plant material. This process is called “intestinal fermentation,” and since these microbes are digesting the cellulose found in cows’ food, methane is produced as a by-product. Here’s a problem: The EPA knows methane is about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide2 as a greenhouse gas. Alga Biosciences is jumping in to the rescue, creating a new feed for cows that dramatically reduces the amount of belching that occurs.
“Intestinal methanogenesis, also known as cattle belching—is the single largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions in the world. During the digestion of cows, sheep, goats, and other ruminants, microbes in these animals’ stomachs break down food into smaller components, such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. As a byproduct of this process, methane is produced and released into the atmosphere when the animal regurgitates,” Alex Brown, co-founder/CEO of Alga Biosciences explains in an interview with TechCrunch. “When we got into Y Combinator, we put all of our money in that time into academic experiments on live animals to test our product, and we found that methane emissions from beef cattle were undetectable with our approach. This is the first time results of this magnitude have been seen in live animals.” “.
Reducing burping has side effects that extend beyond just the environment. Methane is full of energy, and Alga claims that approximately 12% of all calories fed to a single cow ends up wasted in the form of methane burps. This is a huge hidden cost for farmers, and it presents a great opportunity to redirect those calories into meat and milk production. The theory goes that kelp-based feed additives provide a direct means of reducing anthropogenic methane emissions; It can also be a huge economic benefit for farmers.
The company raised a round led by the Collaborative Fund, and the company has now raised a total of $4 million in funding. Plus Collaborative, Y Combinator, Day One Ventures, Cool Climate Collective, Pioneer Fund, Overview Capital, and more. The company also received a grant from the US Department of Agriculture for climate-smart commodities.
Caroline McCune (Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer), Daria Palatsky (Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer), Alex Brown (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer). Image credit: moss.
The best climate technology startups will build solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions while being cheap, scalable and safe. “We’re glad that ranchers, like us, believe the Alga solution amounts to this trifecta,” said Tomas Alvarez Bellon, an investor in the mutual fund. “We are excited to support Alga Bio on this journey to create a methane-free world.”
The company is working on producing feed additives for larger commercial pilots, and the company told TechCrunch that it can already produce on a scale of tens of thousands of heads per day. There is ample scope to grow; Some sources estimate that there are about 1.5 billion cows in the world.