How Startups Are Helping The Livestock Farming Sector Reduce Emissions

Dairy cattle grazing in field in front of farmstead, Northumberland. (Photo by: Wayne Hutchinson/Farm Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

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Livestock farming has repeatedly come under the microscope in recent years over greenhouse gas emissions, which include both carbon dioxide and methane.

Tackling these emissions will be critical if we are to address climate change and rising temperatures across the world, particularly as livestock emit approximately 30% of worldwide anthropogenic methane, with dairy cattle generating half of those emissions.

Various projects are ongoing around the world to help the industry tackle emissions, using a range of different technologies and solutions.

The Denmark-based cleantech startup Ambient Carbon recently announced it has completed a field trial of its scalable Methane Photochemical System (MEPS) capable of eradicating methane emissions from livestock barn air.

The trial was conducted at the Hofmansgave Foundation farm in Denmark, where a unit, housed in a standard 40-foot shipping container, processed air samples from a 250-cow open-sided dairy barn.

Ambient Carbon’s co-founder and chief science officer, Matthew S. Johnson said initial tests show up to 90% of inlet air methane was eradicated over a methane concentration range of 4.3 ppm to 44 ppm, in an interview.

Johnson added the system works by taking the air from the barn and treating it with UV light and chlorine, which reacts with the methane and makes hydrochloric acid as a by-product.

“Using this system, we will capture 90% of ventilation air from the barn and remove 80% of the methane using MEPS, giving a total removal of over 70%,” he told me.

In addition to destroying methane, the system also removes ammonia and other odors from the dairy barn, while also generating fertilizer as a by-product that can be utilized to decrease the farm’s operating costs.

He added the trials have been supported by Danone North America, reflecting the company’s commitment to investing in innovation and strengthening the supply chain’s sustainability and the resilience of U.S. agriculture.

Ambient Carbon is also working closely with Benton Group Dairies, an important Danone North America supplier, to validate the technology’s performance in real-world dairy operations.

“If you look at climate impact, methane has two thirds of the radiative forcing of carbon dioxide,” added Johnson.

“We’ve known how to trap carbon dioxide for over half a century, but you cannot really use the same methods for methane. But the ‘Achilles heel’ of methane are the chlorine atoms.”

And the U.K. based startup WASE has developed the world’s largest commercial electro-methanogenic reactor (EMR) at a dairy farm in North Wales, which converts cattle slurry into carbon-neutral energy.

he system pumps cattle slurry through the proprietary WASE EMR reactor, where electrically active bacteria break down organics and convert them to methane-rich biogas.

WASE founder and chief executive, Thomas Fudge said the process enables waste to be broken down much faster than a traditional anaerobic digestion system, in an interview.

Fudge said the technology uses these bio-electrodes to grow electrically active microorganisms, which break down the slurry and generate an electrical current.

“Compared to normal anaerobic digestion, this method gets a higher quality biogas,” he told me.

“We typically see around a 30% increase in the methane captured by using this process. Our reactor can also operate at low temperatures and this site operates at 24 degrees Celsius, which is significantly lower than sort of a normal anaerobic digester, which operates around 38 degrees Celsius.”

Fudge added systems like these can help farmers generate electricity onsite, which means they have to rely less on diesel and other fossil fuel energy sources.

“If you can start generating a lot more electricity on site, it means that you then can power more electronics and robotics on farms. It can then be used for heating in boiler sheds, and it can also then be upgraded to be used on vehicles.”

And in January, Müller UK & Ireland launched a programme targeted at decreasing carbon emissions from supplying farms by introducing real-time data analysis.

The programme will run for three years and will see 40 farmers from across the U.K. utilise new ways of monitoring key data needed to meet their emission reduction goals.