Bill Gates Takes Aim At Large Cattle Farms With Latest Investment As The Billionaire Looks To Take On Global Warming Through Reducing Methane Output

Tracking business magnate Bill Gates’s investments has become something of a spectator sport in recent years, and there is no shortage of reasons why. 

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Gates is an astute businessman and if he believes in something enough to put his money behind it, there must be some upside. To that end, Benzinga keeps tabs on Gate’s market moves and has found that one of his latest investments could go a long way toward alleviating the climate crisis.

About Windfall Bio

Windfall Bio is a startup that is taking dead aim at methane emissions from large cattle farms, which is one of the main sources of methane in the atmosphere. Climate scientists are concerned about methane emissions because they are major contributors to the climate crisis.

By some estimates, methane gas is nearly 90% more potent than carbon dioxide as a driver of global warming, and nearly 25% of global methane emissions come from growing food. This will account for nearly half a degree of global warming by 2050. Windfall Bio seeks to solve this problem uniquely. The methane that comes from large farms and cattle is usually found in waste products.

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If you have tens of thousands of cows eating grass and relieving themselves — which almost all macro-farms do — there is a ton of waste that turns into methane under the hot sun. Windfall Bio has developed a process using methanotrophs, naturally occurring microbes found in soil that eat methane. Better still, the methanotrophs convert methane into fertilizer.

Farmers put Windfall Bio’s methane-eating microbes into their soil, and it converts the animal waste from chicken, pig or cattle farms into organic fertilizer. Windfall has proprietary management software that allows farmers to track their fertilizer production. The technology is important because it’s more feasible to lower the methane output of commercial farms worldwide than it is to get the entire world to change its eating habits overnight.

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If Windfall Bio’s technology can be scaled to a global level and the world’s largest farms use it, it has the potential to cut methane emissions enough to reduce global temperatures by a half degree Celsius by 2050. A half-degree drop in global temperatures represents one-third of the targeted 1.5 degrees of temperature reduction the world must hit to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

It’s not hard to see why this is the kind of startup investment that is right up Gates’s alley. It has profit potential while also helping to solve one of the most pressing issues facing humanity in the next century. It’s something that investors who track Gates’s market moves should be aware of, too. Keep an eye out for Windfall Bio. It could be a game-changer. 

Investing in Startups

Thanks to changes in federal law, anyone can actually invest in top startups, including alongside magnates like Bill Gates. For example, some of the earliest investors in the now public Heliogen Inc were actually retail investors, then Bill Gates invested later. Qnetic is a clean energy startup currently raising on Wefunder, while Gates isn't a shareholder, anyone can invest in Qnetic for a limited time. 

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