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Methane is a hydrocarbon many times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, accounting for about 20% of global emissions. Methane is emitted from a variety of human-influenced sources including oil and natural gas systems, mining, landfills, dairy and non-dairy livestock, and wastewater treatment.

In November 2021, the White House announced the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan and committed to reducing methane emissions by 30% below 2020 levels by 2030. To help meet this goal, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) has been funding research and development projects to help industry reduce methane emissions. Of particular interest to BETO are approaches for organic waste streams that can simultaneously avoid methane emissions and provide energy and other resources.

In celebration of Earth Day 2022, BETO provided a webinar titled, Promising Approaches for Reducing Methane Emissions in the United States, on April 20, 2022, from 3–4 p.m. ET. Beau Hoffman, BETO technology manager; Hao Cai, Argonne National Laboratory researcher; and Anelia Milbrandt, National Renewable Energy Laboratory researcher discussed a variety of ways in which methane emissions can be reduced, and how communities across the United States approached the problem.

Topics discussed during this webinar included:

  • What are the leading approaches for methane reduction with organic wastes: landfills, manure, and food waste? How is DOE supporting these efforts?
  • How much methane can we reduce by implementing some of these technologies?
  • How are cities and towns across the United States implementing solutions?
  • What are other benefits can these solutions provide to the communities that manage them?

Download and listen to the presentation. 

BETO supports research, development, and demonstration to enable the sustainable use of domestic biomass and waste resources for the production of biofuels and bioproducts. Learn more at energy.gov/eere/bioenergy.

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