Imagine a world where gas emitted from landfills can be turned into edible protein that ends up on your plate as a burger or a steak. That鈥檚 what scientists are hoping for.聽Calysta Inc.聽in California and String Bio in the Indian city of Bengaluru are among biotechnology firms that have separately discovered ways to turn methane into protein. Bacteria found in soil are fed a liquid containing the gas, sparking a fermentation process similar to making beer.聽Instead of alcohol, protein is released into the water, which is then dried into a brown powder. The product is already being used in animal feed, the first step toward readying it for human consumption.
The companies are betting their products will help alleviate the strain of a growing global population on agricultural land and oceans while natural gas prices trade near the lowest level in almost two decades. String Bio, a start-up which won $200,000 in Indian government grants, and Calysta, backed by investors including Japan鈥檚 Mitsui & Co. and聽Cargill Inc., hope methane-made protein will become a sustainable food of the future.
鈥淚t鈥檚 way better to turn methane into food than burn it,鈥� said Calysta鈥檚 chief executive officer, Alan Shaw, a Menlo Park-based chemist who聽led聽efforts to turn crop waste into fuels at his previous firm. 鈥淲hat better use for it than to turn it into protein and put it into the human food system, and take a lot of the pressure off?鈥�
Landfills, sewage plants and farms all naturally produce methane when organic matter decomposes, which can be captured and transported to a facility,聽said Ezhil Subbian, the co-founder of String Bio in Bengaluru. Shaw says the amount of methane from such sources is too small to feed a large plant economically at the moment but Calysta is working on 鈥渟caling down鈥� its technology. Subbian is optimistic that String Bio will be able to build plants using biogas methane in the next five years.
鈥淲e鈥檙e working on a way to essentially be economic, but at a smaller scale,鈥� said Shaw. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not easy, but we do have some ideas and are working on it.鈥�
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