Efforts to combat global warming focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but scientists have now identified another gas that may be even more harmful and destructive to our environment: methane.
The concentration of methane in the atmosphere has doubled over the past 200 years. Experts believe that this gas is caused by 20 to 30% of global warming.
The American engineer and inventor of Lebanese origin, Tony Fadel - who is famous for manufacturing the iPod - has contributed significantly to identifying and reducing methane emissions in recent years. His current interest is in how to turn the methane gas produced by cow burps and farts into diamonds.
Speaking at the STARMUS festival (a mix of science and arts co-founded by Queen guitarist Brian May), in Bratislava, Tony said the world was "waking up to methane" as a major contributor to global warming, although... Carbon (CO2) grabs most of the headlines.
In addition to inventing the ubiquitous Apple devices, Fadel created Nest, a temperature control and smoke alarm company, which Google acquired for $3.2 billion in January 2014.
He has since invested some of that wealth in helping fight climate change, including financing, designing and building MethaneSAT, a satellite launched earlier this year to detect methane leaks around the world.
“We can even detect methane emissions from an oil or gas pump,” said Tony, who hopes the satellite will act as a methane “cop.”
However, fossil fuel fields are not the only source of methane. Cows, more specifically their burping and, to a lesser extent, their farting, are also an important producer of methane, which traps much more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
“I have a company called Diamond Foundry that takes biomethane either from the ground or from manure or animals and we turn it into diamonds with green energy, wind and solar,” Tony explains.
Like carbon dioxide, the methane molecule contains carbon, which the company extracts and crystallizes to form diamonds, which are currently used primarily in electronics.
Tony is also trying to reduce methane levels from cows, saying: “I have another company called CH4 Global through which we manufacture red seaweed. If you put red seaweed in the feed, burping and gas are reduced by 80 to 90%.”
It is worth noting that although methane does not last in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, it is 80 times more harmful for 20 years after its release.
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