Methane, a natural gaseous byproduct of both rotting garbage in landfills and raw sewage, is increasingly regarded as being valuable.
Instead of allowing methane to float up into the atmosphere, waste companies are increasingly harnessing it for use as heating gas and as a means to produce electricity [San Francisco Chronicle blog].
It seems to be an alternative energy whose time has come: Methane landfill projects are already online in almost every state, and San Antonio has just signed on to become the first city to harvest methane from its sewage treatment facility. Harvesting methane serves a two-fold purpose:
If it is not captured, the E.P.A. says, landfill methane becomes a greenhouse gas at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, when it rises into the atmosphere. The agency estimates that landfills account for 25 percent of all methane releases linked to human activity. As ...
