Spark Climate Solutions

Spark is excited to announce seven research awards from the second round of our Exploratory Grants for Atmospheric Methane Research funding opportunity, supporting further investigation into biological, engineered catalysis, and atmospheric oxidation enhancement potential approaches, as well as related climate science to advance scientific understanding of existing methane sinks. Joining the growing community of Spark-supported grantees, we welcome our new award recipients:?https://lnkd.in/gPmjYzqi —?Prof. Lisa Y. Stein (University of Alberta) will assess methods to improve the effectiveness of bacteria in bioreactors for potential methane removal applications. —?Prof. Adam Boies (Stanford University) will develop a platform to assess the efficiency of a wide range of potential methane oxidizing catalysts.? —?Prof. James Farquhar (University of Maryland) will advance understanding of methane sink attribution by quantifying “fingerprints” to distinguish different atmospheric sinks.? —?Dr. Jos de Laat PhD (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) will assess the viability of using “tracers” for identification of methane oxidation from satellites.? —?Prof. Hartmut Herrmann (Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research) will advance modeling capabilities to better understand the role that chlorine may play in methane removal.? —?Prof. Lucy Carpenter (University of York) will conduct an observational study quantifying the effect of mineral dust on methane oxidation.? —?Prof. Mingyi Wang (University of Chicago) will explore the efficiency of ferric chloride aerosols in oxidizing methane. These grants will help support the priorities identified in the research agenda that was released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine last week: https://lnkd.in/eQJhCn-V Learn more about Spark’s growing community of grantees who are tackling priority research questions to advance the understanding of methane removal as a potentially critical part of the climate response portfolio: https://lnkd.in/gMf_jczD

Great to see more field support for methane mitigation innovation from EQT Foundation! Applications are open now through Nov 8th for €25K to €100K grants for novel, technological frontier advancements for methane solutions in fields like agriculture, industry, and waste management.

Today a new NASEM Earth & Life Sciences report lays out a recommended $50-80 million/yr, 3-5 year first phase research agenda to build foundational knowledge of methane removal approaches, which researchers are now exploring as additional climate risk reduction tools. Methane now causes 0.5°C of warming. It is accumulating in the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, and methane emission reductions are the highest priority. Methane removal could be an important additional tool to reduce warming, particularly with expected methane climate feedbacks such as rising emissions from wetlands and thawing permafrost. The report assessed 5 methane removal approach categories and proposes a multi-phase research agenda across 5 research areas, underscoring the urgent need to rapidly expand coordinated research and investment in the field, in parallel with crucial emission reductions efforts. It recommends an expansion through federal funding of research areas Spark has been philanthropically funding over the last 3 years. In the time that Spark has supported the field, we’ve seen huge growth in scientific interest. Much more research and funding is needed, and we’re looking forward to continuing to support the growth of the methane removal field, aligned with the NASEM study recs. Read our press release: https://lnkd.in/eeztWrNP

We’re hiring for a Program Lead, Agricultural Nitrogen Systems at Spark! This role is a unique opportunity to build a philanthropic program to advance transformational agricultural nitrogen management solutions, and coordinate, shape, and build off of an emergent collaboration of about 30 university, government, and NGO scientists, under the umbrella title of “Nitrogen2.0.” This leader will play a pivotal role in defining and shaping a new field that links climate, environmental science, and agriculture. We’re looking for a strategic thinker and collaborative doer to identify and manage the work needed to accelerate transformative changes in nitrogen management in food production systems to increase efficiencies and decrease nitrogen pollution. Please share to help us find a great fit, or if this is you, we look forward to your application! The role: https://lnkd.in/e86yg4M7 Learn more about Nitrogen2.0: https://lnkd.in/en9gfX_K

Exciting new job opportunity coordinating a national effort to make U.S. agriculture and food system more nitrogen efficient, with massive potential benefits including reduced fertilizer costs for farmers, decreased water pollution, and lower greenhouse gas emissions. https://lnkd.in/eVgVq6zg

Delighted to have been selected along with profs. James McDonald and Yin Chen as 1 of four recipients of a Spark Climate Solutions exploratory grant. Really looking forward to getting started on the project. #AtmosphericMethaneRemoval #AMR #methane University of Birmingham #BIFoR #BirminghamLES #GEES #BISCA

It's humbling to be among three extraordinary scientists: Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Arlene Fiore and Jesse Kroll, and University of Birmingham's Vincent Gauci as one of the first four recipients of Spark's grants for novel & ambitious methane mitigation technology. I and the whole team at Elysia Creative Biology will work hard to live up to the company we're in! Check out the brief description of our project here: https://lnkd.in/ekrRUw6S as well as Vincent Gauci's extraordinary recent publication in Nature on the scale of tree-based methane uptake: https://lnkd.in/eYaaam6r

We are delighted to receive one of the first-ever methane removal grants from Spark Climate Solutions! Over the next two years, we'll explore how a plant-based technology we conceived as a new way to cut methane emissions from cattle could not only do that, but also suck methane right out of the air! We're very excited to be working on the world-changing potential of this project with a great team as well as our frequent collaborator Professor Aram Mikaelyan and the community of the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative. Huge thanks to everyone involved: Swathi Barampuram, Prateek Jain, Daniel Yanke, Kurt Tsuo, Ajeet H., W Dwight Armstrong, Jacqueline (Jackie) Olich, PhD, Jen Greenstein, Ph.D., Kathleen Denya, Activate, Andrés Ochoa C.

Spark is excited to announce four research awards from the first round of our Exploratory Grants for Atmospheric Methane Research funding opportunity, enabling research into two entirely new biological approaches and further core atmospheric chemistry research to improve our understanding of current oxidation dynamics and inform future development of additional methane removal approaches. Grantees include: —?Arlene Fiore (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) will explore how the capacity of the atmosphere to breakdown methane will change as the composition of the atmosphere responds to perturbations such as decreasing fossil fuel burning, increasing use of hydrogen as a fuel source, climate change, and other anthropogenic and natural trends. —?Vincent Gauci (University of Birmingham) will advance understanding of the contribution from tree-based methane-consuming microbes to the global methane sink, and investigate approaches to enhance that sink, potentially unlocking new pathways to address growing atmospheric methane concentrations. —?Jesse Kroll (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) will explore the potential for chlorinated compounds to serve as marker species to quantify existing atmospheric methane oxidation pathways. If successful, this research could lead to a transformational new measurement approach to improve our understanding of atmospheric processes that breakdown methane and other pollutants. —?Eli Hornstein (Elysia Creative Biology) will explore the possibility of expressing the enzyme that methane-consuming bacteria use to break down methane in crop plants, enabling plants to break down methane in the air. In addition to priority work that must happen to reduce anthropogenic methane removals, methane removal could be a critical tool to reduce near-term warming and address potential increases in natural methane emissions. The field is still in its early stages and no approaches are yet ready for deployment. In the last few years there has been growing interest and engagement from the scientific community. There was an even more ambitious response from the scientific community to the second round of Spark’s Exploratory Grants funding opportunity, and awards for the second round, which closed in June 2024, will be announced later this summer. Read more about the newly funded research projects: https://lnkd.in/gHuCKbNK

Great new piece from Stanford Professor Rob Jackson on the climate imperative of cutting methane, and touching on many of the areas in which Spark is focused on advancing progress, including livestock methane, natural system feedbacks, and methane removal research. "No other major greenhouse gas provides such an immediate opportunity to slow climate change... With the right policies and focus, we can all live to see the benefits of cleaning methane from our atmosphere, providing us and our children with a less chaotic, more sustainable planet."