methane-reduction
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Toby Rice and the trouble with a happy ending
He helped build Rice Energy, sold it to EQT, then won a shareholder fight to run the buyer. For Toby Rice, the exit turned out to be an entrance.
Dr. Tom Williams and the price of a cow’s burp
Raised in New Zealand’s dairy country, the synthetic biologist co-founded Number 8 Bio to turn lost feed energy into a reason for farmers to cut methane. His route from yeast research to grazing trials has required a willingness to change the science without losing sight of the farm.
Windfall Bio and the Microbes That Outlived the Business
Windfall Bio put methane-eating microbes to work making organic fertilizer. Its trials delivered promising results; its equipment reached the auction block in 2026.
BioFiltro Put Earthworms on the Wastewater Payroll - Now a $35 Million Bet Is Testing Whether Nature Can Beat the Tank
The Davis company turns manure and process water into a four-hour biology lesson. The memorable part is the worms; the consequential part is a business model built around cleaner water, lower methane, and infrastructure customers do not always have to own.
The Robot in the Gas Main: How ULC Turned Fewer Holes in the Street Into a $40 Million Business
Utilities do not buy robots because robots are charming. They buy fewer excavations, shorter closures and safer work - and ULC Technologies learned to sell exactly that outcome.
Number 8 Bio
Number 8 Bio is a Sydney-based agtech and climate startup building BetterFeed, a low-cost feed additive and slow-release rumen bolus that cuts enteric methane from cattle and sheep by up to 90% in trials while recapturing wasted feed energy to lift animal productivity. After pivoting from yeast biomanufacturing to synthetic-chemistry small molecules, the company targets grass-fed grazing systems - about 95% of Australia's livestock - and has raised roughly A$18 million to move toward commercial release.
BioLumic
BioLumic is a New Zealand-founded agricultural biotechnology company that uses precisely tuned ultraviolet light treatments to program desirable traits into seeds and seedlings without genetic modification. Applied in seconds, its patented 'light recipes' switch on plants' natural genetic expression to deliver double-digit yield gains, stronger disease resistance and stress tolerance across crops including corn, soybean, rice and ryegrass. The company partners with seed producers to commercialize non-GMO, climate-smart traits at scale.
Unblock
Unblock builds and operates mobile, modular data centers that plug directly into wasted energy - gas that would otherwise be flared at oil wells, methane venting off landfills, and renewable power that gets curtailed for lack of grid capacity. By converting that stranded energy into computing power on-site, the company turns an environmental liability into revenue for energy producers while cutting emissions. Founded in 2021 and led by CEO Tomas Ocampo, Unblock has scaled to roughly 15 MW of deployed capacity across Latin America, claims the world's second-largest computing fleet at oil-field facilities, and eliminates an estimated 142,000 tons of CO2 equivalent annually.