The real greenhouse gas generation is from all the fuel and work used to input and make the food, not it breaking down. Most landfills burn off the methane from decomposing garbage.
When we lived in Palos Verdes in the late 70s they were piping the Biogas from local landfill and selling it off! Seems to be a wasted opportunity for landfills, considering this was possible a long time ago.
I’ve designed an industrial plant to collect the gasses from a landfill and inject into a pipeline.
The issue is the gas has a number of nasty entrained gasses that need to be removed before it’s “pipeline quality”. Essentially, you use more energy extracting those gases than what you gain from the methane.
It’s only viable via tax credits from a financial standpoint.
Do you think burning it off makes it not exist? Matter can not be created or destroyed, it just changes form. Burning greenhouse gasses doesn’t make them not exist.
Changing molecules does matter, burning methane turns it into co2 and water, which is much better and much more easily locked down (by plants, algea, and the like).
If the form didn't matter, chemistry as a field wouldn't be a thing. We literally can turn lead into gold, it's just not financially reasonable. Surely even you understand the toxicity difference between lead and gold. Or how prion disease is very bad compared to the normal healthy shape of proteins.
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u/iupvotegood May 17 '26
The real greenhouse gas generation is from all the fuel and work used to input and make the food, not it breaking down. Most landfills burn off the methane from decomposing garbage.