What do you, cows, digesters and landfills all have in common? You all/ we all make methane gas. The methane in landfill is the same as 'clean fuel' natural gas. It is the same as the gas in anaerobic digesters. It is the same stuff that cows and people produce in their farts. So why is some of this good and some of this bad? First it is good to understand where methane comes from. Methane is a by- product of eating in an environment with little to no oxygen. Here I don't mean holding your nose when you have to eat something really disgusting. I mean eating in a place where people can't breath- your intestines for example. In your intestines- which is your own personal Air BNB for microbes, those microbes are feasting on food that you haven't fully consumed and on the wastes from the foods that you have eaten. There is very little oxygen (we put our electrons from eating onto oxygen and make CO2) and so in order to release the energy from the food that they eat, they have to shove electrons onto something. The compound of last resort is carbon and in the process methane is formed. Realize that these microbes are good for you and that you should nourish them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probiotic).
The microbes that do this are in the Archaea family. These microbes are ubiquitous- in soils, oceans, landfills and us. Here is what they look like- in water, us and in wastewater.
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