Slashing CO2Methane bounty hunters.
Big Picture
Methane (CH4) seeps out of many sources, from Arctic permafrost to cow burps, but the biggest sources of all are coal mines and gas wells. Methane doesn’t hang around the atmosphere as long as CO2, but while it’s up there it generates 84x more warming per molecule. Flaring it results in 98% less atmospheric warming over a decade than if the gas were simply allowed to escape into the atmosphere.
How it Works
Frost Methane develops a fleet of distributed, remote flares at abandoned and active coal mines, as well as natural sources. The devices convert high-flow methane sources into water and CO2. Careful engineering, real-time alerts, and an automatic relight mechanism limit maintenance and keep costs to one-tenth of competing systems. This generates methane offsets they sell to regulated industries.
Unfair Advantage
Their flares combust methane at 10x lower capex than other productive uses of the gas. They also operate unattended in highly inhospitable conditions with minimal maintenance for many years. Carbon markets will pay 25x more for flared methane than they do for CO2 offsets, and now they offer predictability too: California-Quebec Cap & Trade officially selected mine methane as an offset type.
98
Percent less CO2e
for every unit of flared methane
OLYA IRZAK CEO & FOUNDER
Olya is a software engineer and expert in energy systems who worked at Google, X (the moonshot factory), and Zola Electric.
Follow: @twitatolya
ELIZABETH HILLSTROM SENIOR MECHANICAL ENGINEER
Elizabeth built testing systems for advanced power generation and designed high-bandwidth satellite optical communication links.
Frost Methane Labs
My Climate Journey Podcast
Artic adventures: Olya Irzak of Frost Methane
Work On Climate
Geologic methane seeps along boundaries of Arctic permafrost thaw and melting glaciers
Nature Geosciences