The Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development (ORED) has selected the Center for Methane Emission Research and Innovation (CMERI) for $1M in funding, which is led by principal investigator (PI) YangQuan Chen and co-PI's Gerardo Diaz, Xuan Zhang, and Sarah Kurtz. The funding is a part of the Climate Action Seed Grant, of which, 23 proposals were received, requesting a total of $12,925,522. There were a total of nine funded projects, three small (up to $50k), and six large(up to $1M) - see ORED for more details on other projects. CMERI Project funding is set to begin June 1, 2023 and end June 30, 2025.
The proposed Center for Methane Emission Research and Innovation (CMERI) takes the closed-loop thinking (sensing/actuation) for taking climate actions against methane emissions due to both environmental and anthropogenic emissions. CMERI addresses all 6 CA Climate Adaptation Priorities. CMERI aims to develop actionable information from methane emission sensing and quantification for emission reduction and mitigation actions, and to contribute to education, outreach and workforce development for disadvantaged communities by partnering with federal agencies (e.g. USGS, NASA JPL), state agencies (e.g. CARB, CDFA etc.), California Dairy Research Foundation, local dairy farms and industries (e.g. Moomilk, SeekOps).
The project will fund two post doc scholars, four PhD students, and two undergraduates, during the initial start up phase.
