July 11, 2024; contact: Peter T. Jenkins, Fund Manager;
[email protected]
*CIEIF Makes Second Round of Grants and Announces Increased Grant Amount
and Date for 2024 Applications*
Bethesda, Maryland, USA - The Climate Intervention
Environmental Impact Fund (CIEIF; https://cieif.org/) is pleased to
announce completion of its second round of $65,000 grants towards
environmental impact analysis for climate restoration projects. The three
new grantees are:
*Bluemethane Limited *(www.bluemethane.com) – a UK start-up aimed at
harvesting methane from wastewater treatment plants and other aquatic
sources.
*Exaquest Carbon *(https://exaquest.org) – a California nonprofit
organization founded in 2020 with the mission to develop open-source
technologies for scalable and cost-effective carbon dioxide removal (CDR).
*Floating Island International *(www.floatingislandinternational.com) – an
established Montana company with systems to clean freshwater ecosystems,
which now seeks to remove methane from dam reservoirs and other aquatic
sources.
The grants to two separate teams aimed at removing aquatic methane
represent CIEIF’s recognition of the alarming rise in worldwide methane
levels attributable to diverse aquatic sources, primarily wetlands.
Techniques that are innovated by the two teams may be adaptable in the
future to other such sources.
CIEIF’s decision making team consists of Peter Jenkins, Fund Manager;
Renaud de Richter, PhD., Science Advisor; and John Fitzgerald, Legal
Advisor. They narrowed numerous applications down based on several factors,
including their clarity, their long-term potential for climate benefits,
and the applicants’ commitment to publishing the results of their
environmental impact assessments (EIA). All grantees will publish their
impact-related results either in a peer-reviewed journal or as a publicly
available report with independent peer review. One of CIEIF’s primary goals
is to increase understanding about the potential risks and benefits of
various climate interventions.
*Bluemethane’s *project will take place at a wastewater treatment plant in
southern England. It uses mechanical agitation of wastewater in a
Bluemethane-developed machine called Harvey to extract the
high-concentration methane so it can be recovered and used as biogas.
CIEIF’s funding will enable a comprehensive EIA, including ongoing
monitoring, covering all potential impacts of this technique. It does so
under a detailed framework Bluemethane developed that will be applicable,
with some adaptations, to other aquatic methane capture projects in the
future.
*Exaquest Carbon* has developed a method – “BioSink”- which involves
collecting waste dead wood and mechanically lowering it to a depth of 800
ft in the ocean. In minutes, the hydrostatic pressure at that depth causes
the wood to become waterlogged and then sink on its own thousands of feet
to the seafloor below. Once at the seafloor, carbon in the wood stays out
of contact with the atmosphere for more than 1,000 years. The huge abyssal
plains of the ocean floor are up 12,000 feet deep and remote from human
activity. CIEIF’s grant will allow Exaquest to conduct a detailed
predictive EIA of the potential localized impacts to be used for a permit
application to the EPA. This will include two trips for collecting and
analyzing ocean floor sediments, marine biology, water chemistry, and other
parameters at the proposed sinking location, 140 miles off the Southern
California coast.
*Floating Island International *(FII) has developed a system that prevents
methane emissions being generated by nutrient-impaired freshwater and
captures dissolved methane before it enters the atmosphere. Behind many
typical hydroelectric dams, which abruptly halt the natural flow of water,
organic sediments build up in the reservoir and oxygen is depleted as the
sediments decay. This results in anoxic conditions, thus allowing
methanogens to generate biogenic methane. Leveraging FII’s experience with
water/air circulation pumps and gas and nutrient capturing, they seek to
perfect methane removal in a field test in the Bighorn Reservoir behind
Yellowtail Dam, near Fort Smith, Montana. CIEIF funding will support a
detailed predictive EIA involving potential impacts on fisheries,
nutrients, oxygenation, public safety, and other concerns in order to
obtain necessary permits from the US Bureau of Reclamation and other
affected agencies.
More details about all three projects will be made available at
https://cieif.org/current-grants/
CIEIF also is announcing *another round of three grants with* *increased
award amounts of $75,000 each*. The deadline for applications is *December
1, 2024*. Innovative climate intervention projects worldwide in need of
funding for focused environmental impact assessment, impact modeling,
and/or public-stakeholder outreach are encouraged to apply. Details of the
eligibility requirements are at: cieif.org/what-we-do and
cieif.org/guidelines-for-grant-applicants/.
CIEIF will issue future reminders of this December 2024 opportunity. To
receive them directly, go to cieif.org/ and Sign Up for Updates.
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