Satellite data finds landfills are methane 'super emitters'

[Hydrogen]

Landfills are releasing large amounts of planet-warming methane gas into the atmosphere from the decomposition of waste and are a significant contributor to such emissions in urban areas, a study suggests.

Scientists used satellite data from Delhi and Mumbai in India, Lahore in Pakistan and Buenos Aires in Argentina and identified specific locations in each city that persistently emit high methane levels, all of which were landfills. The cities' overall methane emissions from all sources were 1.4 to 2.6 times higher than previous estimates.

The study, published in Science Advances on Wednesday, is aimed at helping local governments carry out targeted efforts to limit global warming by pinpointing specific sites of major concern.

When organic waste like food, wood or paper decomposes, it emits methane into the air. Landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions globally, after oil and gas systems and agriculture.

Although methane only accounts for about 11% of greenhouse gas emissions and lasts about a dozen years in the air, it traps 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide does. Scientists estimate that at least 25% of today's warming is driven by methane from human actions.

"This is the first time that high-resolution satellite images have been used to observe landfills and calculate their methane emissions," said Joannes Maasakkers, lead author of the study and atmospheric scientist at the Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

"We found that these landfills, which are relatively small compared to city sizes, are responsible for a large fraction of total emissions from a given area," he said.

Satellite data to detect emissions is still a relatively new field, but it's being used more and more to observe gases across the world. It means more independent organizations are tracking greenhouse gases and identifying big emitters, whereas previously local government figures were the only source available.

"This new work shows just how important it is to manage landfills better, especially in countries like India where landfills are often on fire, emitting a wide range of damaging pollutants," said Euan Nisbet, an Earth scientist at Royal Holloway, University of London, who wasn't part of the study.

Earlier this year, smoke hung over New Delhi for days after a massive landfill caught fire as the country was sweltering in an extreme heat wave with temperatures surpassing 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit). At least two other landfill fires have been reported in India this year.

Nisbet added that the newer satellite technology, combined with on-the-ground measurements, makes it easier for researchers to identify "who is polluting the world."

China and India are the world's biggest methane polluters, a recent analysis by the International Energy Agency found.

At last year's United Nations climate conference, 104 countries signed a pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 compared with 2020 levels. Both India and China are not signatories.

The authors plan to carry out more research into landfill sites across the world in future studies.

"It is a quickly developing field and we expect more interesting data to come out soon," said Maasakkers.



https://phys.org/news/2022-08-satellite-landfills-methane-super-emitters.html

....


Here we have an interesting and seldom acknowledged facet of climate change: landfills generating significant quantities of methane. Which could be a more dangerous greenhouse gas in contrast to carbon emissions.

Space X has devised one method of reducing damage to the environment: burning methane as a rocket fuel. Emissions produced by burning methane are less damaging to the planet than methane itself. Perhaps it could be feasible to hoist networks of air balloons over landfills to capture methane emissions. Which would then be burned as fuel. I think there are definitely crazier waste recycling ideas out there.

Seeing as how many are overzealous in their climate change crusade. Enough so to negatively stigmatize PoW and the crypto mining industry. Perhaps they can be appeased by a stronger effort towards a carbon neutral society.

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[gweb1996]

Landfills are releasing large amounts of planet-warming methane gas into the atmosphere from the decomposition of waste and are a significant contributor to such emissions in urban areas, a study suggests.

Scientists used satellite data from Delhi and Mumbai in India, Lahore in Pakistan and Buenos Aires in Argentina and identified specific locations in each city that persistently emit high methane levels, all of which were landfills. The cities' overall methane emissions from all sources were 1.4 to 2.6 times higher than previous estimates.


Seeing as how many are overzealous in their climate change crusade. Enough so to negatively stigmatize PoW and the crypto mining industry. Perhaps they can be appeased by a stronger effort towards a carbon neutral society.
...

Dude the world is starving, cut the crap with CO2 , Green stuff ,globalism cra..p ...in Europe we will beat ecologists,globalists to dea..th if they continue on this path with net zero emissions.

[adaseb]

I am pretty sure the reason why they apply a certain membrane between the layers of land fill waste is to contain that methane release.

They dump the garbage and after a few weeks they cover it up so it doesn’t produce methane. They add a thick layer and they pile more garbage on top of that and eventually also cover it up. The bigger issue with landfill is the toxic liquids that are released and harder to control.

[Hydrogen]

I am pretty sure the reason why they apply a certain membrane between the layers of land fill waste is to contain that methane release.

They dump the garbage and after a few weeks they cover it up so it doesn’t produce methane. They add a thick layer and they pile more garbage on top of that and eventually also cover it up. The bigger issue with landfill is the toxic liquids that are released and harder to control.

Methane build up in landfills would be a fire hazard. I doubt they would want to contain or build up mass quantities of it, which could fuel a fire or explosion.

Its been said that permafrost in the arctic and antarctic contain large amounts of methane which are released as temperatures rise, and ice at the poles, melt.

The phenomenon is known as a methane burp:

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-12-15/methane-burps-ticking-time-bomb/

Unfortunately, we don't have satellites over the poles equipped with mass spectrometers to make rough estimates of how much methane is being released from melting permafrost. But it is possible that it is comparable or even larger than the amounts at landfills. As ice at the poles covers a significantly larger area, in terms of square miles.

There's a long list of climate change topics which aren't receiving serious attention for whatever reason. And it is strange.

[NeuroticFish]

Lately there's some attention towards biodiesel, which is, from my understanding, exactly this. Just, of course, they focus on making biodiesel from new waste, ignoring the old, for some reason (insufficient knowledge?, landfills may stop emitting gas after a short while? I don't know).

[ChiBitCTy]

This is the exact kind of data that makes me wonder why there are so many climate change deniers out there. There are so many things that we are doing to this planet that we don’t even realize. Trying to claim that it’s natural for the earth to go through periods of high temperatures, which it is, but to ignore all of the extra stuff going on that didn’t exist back in the past seems crazy to me. Interesting approach SpaceX is looking to potentially take here.

[Obito]

Just so people know, this waste wouldn't be wastes if the government supported the upcycling and recycling efforts of non-government and non-profit organizations, food waste is particularly dumb, it has a real simple solution which is giving it away to those who can't afford to eat, restaurants and other food establishments don't do this kind of thing, they opt out to put it in trash instead of giving it to soup kitchens or giving it to homeless in the area.

[stompix]

I am pretty sure the reason why they apply a certain membrane between the layers of land fill waste is to contain that methane release.
They dump the garbage and after a few weeks they cover it up so it doesn’t produce methane. They add a thick layer and they pile more garbage on top of that and eventually also cover it up. The bigger issue with landfill is the toxic liquids that are released and harder to control.

There is no way to stop a landfill from producing gas, as long as it contains matter that is decomposing it will produce gas, the membranes are not for stopping gas, they are designed mainly to stop the flowing of the liquids that are generated through the process, the leachate to reach the groundwater, we use this even in farming for open-air manure pit, although..well...I can tell you a lot are done as they should just on paper, and this is even in Europe where we have tight regulations, god help us what happens elsewhere. The dome on top of the pile is not for restricting the gas, is for redirecting all gas through an already made opening from which it can either be collected and used or simply burned in some cases just like flaring.

Lately there's some attention towards biodiesel, which is, from my understanding, exactly this. Just, of course, they focus on making biodiesel from new waste, ignoring the old, for some reason (insufficient knowledge?, landfills may stop emitting gas after a short while? I don't know).

Biodiesel is made from vegetable oil and used cooking oil, and in some cases animal fat but I've not seen once an example of this being even close to remotely profitable as fat can be directly used for a ton of other things, it's cheaper and indirectly more profitable to turn it into low-quality dog food than making biofuel out of it.

What you get from a landfill is gas, it makes little sense to try to turn it into a traditional fuel so instead, you either use a generator on-site to produce energy or you can process it into LNG but again with every major transformation it begins to be more expensive.

[crwth]

Upon checking scientific research, some papers focus on capturing and recovering CH₄ or Methane and then have it stored in some storage. According to this Peter Englezos, the author of this paper,^[1]. He said that it is feasible to recover CH₄ from CH₄/CO₂ and then when it is separated, collect CO₂ as well.

Landfills probably contain both compounds and a mixture of them. It's important to have it collected and processed with low energy requirements as possible to provide the most efficient way with less harm to the environment.

There are very few applications of low-carbon methane fuel for hypersonic propulsion^[2]. So if ever there would be a focus on SpaceX research, maybe this could be the improvement and upgrade of the current


References:

[1] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1004954118309479
[2] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hypersonic-propulsion

[Kakmakr]

"Cattle are the No. 1 agricultural source of greenhouse gases worldwide. Each year, a single cow will belch about 220 pounds of methane." Source : https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/making-cattle-more-sustainable

Livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gases. Source : https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/using-global-emission-statistics-distracting-us-climate-change-solutions

So I think the over emphasis on Bitcoin's impact on climate chance, should be compared with other major polluters of this world, to get a more fair picture of this issue. 

[NotATether]

Space X has devised one method of reducing damage to the environment: burning methane as a rocket fuel. Emissions produced by burning methane are less damaging to the planet than methane itself.

This solution will only be kicked into effect provided that the commercial rocket industry booms. That doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon <I mean you can't expect SpaceX to make all the rockets, right??>

[NeuroticFish]

Lately there's some attention towards biodiesel, which is, from my understanding, exactly this. Just, of course, they focus on making biodiesel from new waste, ignoring the old, for some reason (insufficient knowledge?, landfills may stop emitting gas after a short while? I don't know).

Biodiesel is made from vegetable oil and used cooking oil, and in some cases animal fat but I've not seen once an example of this being even close to remotely profitable as fat can be directly used for a ton of other things, it's cheaper and indirectly more profitable to turn it into low-quality dog food than making biofuel out of it.

What you get from a landfill is gas, it makes little sense to try to turn it into a traditional fuel so instead, you either use a generator on-site to produce energy or you can process it into LNG but again with every major transformation it begins to be more expensive.

OK, then I guess that I've made a confusion in terms; however, I've read somewhere that recovering methane from the new waste is being pushed (more or less), while I heard nothing about also considering the old waste.
Of course, I have no idea what are all the possible methods for how that "recovering" would work; indeed, burning on-site makes sense - I think that's already being done for municipal centralized heating.

There is no way to stop a landfill from producing gas, as long as it contains matter that is decomposing it will produce gas

Do you know by chance for how long would a landfill produce this gas, as an approximated estimation? Maybe what I'm asking is stupid though, since one cannot compare the waste of let's say Tampa FL, with the waste of Rio de Janeiro.

[Ucy]

The issue is actually part of modern world problem...in olden days in certain places people typically have farms which they feed with things generated from their homes that there won't be need to have places for public to pile them up to rot away and pollute the environment. I guess one of the main reasons piling them is more common these days is the synthetic waste that can't be used in farms,which is still part of the modern world problem.

In regards to blaming methane for the heats, I don't think it's the problem assuming earth is built to generate methane and use it efficiently even for warming up the environment in extreme cold weather. The issue is the protective bubble that is covering Earth. If it's weakened while you have zero methane, there will still be the extreme heat problems. If the bubble is strong, even with the presence of methane, you won't have to worry about the extreme heat. The bubble should be strengthed...I'm not sure Methane weakens the bubble

[stompix]

Do you know by chance for how long would a landfill produce this gas, as an approximated estimation? Maybe what I'm asking is stupid though, since one cannot compare the waste of let's say Tampa FL, with the waste of Rio de Janeiro.

If we're talking worst-case scenario, everything being dumped randomly, no storage no compressing, no burning, and with the ground being exactly the worst, a clay mixture can keep emitting gas for nearly 25 years. There are claims of over that period but those are just pockets of trapped gas.
The best case scenario advertised for our brand new local ecobiogreennaturefriendly is 5 years with multiple layered waste, heavy recycling on-site, no direct dumping of food waste and use of incinerators, and so on and on, and a ton of money! The same advert claims it to be fully ready for other kinds of development, god knows what that might be, in 10 years.

But I wouldn't want to be the one going around estimating how the landfill is doing even after 10 years, just carpet bomb the shit out of it and be done. My region has always grown both pigs and cattle intensively, we have hundreds of manure pits and I know tens of scary stories when even after one year some went full "witness me!!!' with shovels to dig it out and barely managed to get alive when a pocket of hydrogen sulfide was punctured.

Livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gases. Source : https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/using-global-emission-statistics-distracting-us-climate-change-solutions
So I think the over emphasis on Bitcoin's impact on climate chance, should be compared with other major polluters of this world, to get a more fair picture of this issue. 

Let's see how long the world last in two cases:
- without bitcoin
- without agriculture
then let's do more of these comparisons that make absolutely no sense.

[Nhazwrath]

Methane isn't he primary greenhouse gas.  Its not even close.   

Also, there have been plans for utilizing the methane produced by landfills to generate power for like 40 years.   Never seen or heard of one run yet. 


So the take away here Is..


FUD.   This isn't news

Have a great day !

[franky1]

though this topic is about ecology rather than economy.. lets delve into it

carbon and methane are bad chemicals to have in the air which affect the human lungs alot and do have some sway on the climate.. but many people forget the other factors of climate that have been impacted by humans, things that have a more dramatic and noticable change to weather and temperature that people can see but no one seems to talk about

the one facet to think about in regards to methane. which no one thinks about..
each autumn all plants lose their foliage. all fruit plants drop their fruits.
if all of this was not eaten 100% would go to decompose.

yes a small landfill is like thousands of acres worth of foodstuff. put into a small area the size of only a football stadium. so ofcourse it appears like alot of emmission for one area.
but if plants and animals were not consumed 100% of plants and animals would die in fields and rott. where none of their cells are used. thus 100% decompose. so the atmosphere would have alot more methane. just the more methane would be spread out over hundreds of fields instead of the space of 1 field

think about this aswell

when science looks at the % of whats found in the atmosphere.
when they show 400parts per million (0.000,4%) of carbon..
what they sometimes dont explain
is this
imagine you had a plate of 1000g of sausages and 1000g burgers 1000g of beans and 1000g of water (4kg on a plate)
where each represents 25%
if you take 200g of water off the plate.
meaning total is now 3800g of all content
guess what..
it now appears that there are 1000g of 3800g total of sausages
meaning instead of 25% of sausages. there are 26.31% of sausages
..
that said. whats more interesting about climate is the water cycle. due to concrete and tarmac land. water never gets to soak into land to cool it down as much as it did. instead it gets ushered and directed into sewers and pipes. so hardly any of it cools the land. and also hardly any has a chance to evaporate to then create new rain clouds to create new rain for the next day.

take the sahara desert. do you think its hot due to cow farts, and rotting vegetables and car fumes..(though no cars, cows of vegetation has existed there for decades) or because of drought and where flash floods to force waters across the land and straight to rivers and straight to the sea before it has had chance to soak into the land to have a thin enough layer of water to evaporate back up

take a little lesson.

have 3 cups of water.
put 1 cups worth of water in a closed off pipe on a patio slap on your back yard in the sun
put 1 cups of water(still in cup on your back yard patio in the sun.
put 1 cups worth of water(poured out) onto you patio slab in the sun

and just watch
see which one evaporates the most water.
and also take a temperature before and after of
the patio slab with the water pipe
the patio slab with the cup
the patio slab where the puddle was

ENJOY learning about human factors that contribute to climate change in your own back yard

on really hot days of the year. do people complain "dang their air is smokey" or are they saying "dang the air is dry"

many arrid deserts are seeing climate activists do the simple task of putting grass seed and also specific plants that can root well to turn the desert sands into land that gran crab and allow water to soak into the land rather than just wash across the surface.

[STT]

Food is used to produce biogas and has been since the second world war when it was essential at times.   Its probably a tiny minority to the waste that occurs.   I was recently watching a program in India where this occurs and alot of the food is damaged or wasting crops that are not worth transporting back from market.  
  The obvious first usage is cattle feed for alot of food stuffs but since it can be mixed in with rubbish becoming a potential hazard, food is used for crop fertilizer also I think.  The Indian company I saw mashed and water the food, then fed it into a sealed tank with no air just massive amounts of bacteria designed to consume and produce this gas that can be burnt.  The gas was used on site to heat meals again for workers, but biogas can power cars and many things.

[darkangel11]

Here we have an interesting and seldom acknowledged facet of climate change: landfills generating significant quantities of methane. Which could be a more dangerous greenhouse gas in contrast to carbon emissions.

Of course it's moire dangerous because CO2 is used by plants, methane is not. It also smells bad.

There's one interesting feature that it has which is combustion that turns it into CO2 and H20 and produces heat in the process. If we were able to separate organic components from our garbage and put it in enclosed compartments to decompose, we'd be able to gather methane and use it for heating instead of propane, butane, petroleum gas and all that.

[Darker45]

I am pretty sure the reason why they apply a certain membrane between the layers of land fill waste is to contain that methane release.

They dump the garbage and after a few weeks they cover it up so it doesn’t produce methane. They add a thick layer and they pile more garbage on top of that and eventually also cover it up. The bigger issue with landfill is the toxic liquids that are released and harder to control.

Well, that's the design at least. These landfills are supposed to be sanitary landfills. And before they're approved, they have to be properly designed in such a way that it is not posing any serious danger to the surrounding communities and beyond. For sure, these landfills secured all the necessary permits and clearances. Alas, satellite data disprove everything. Sanitary landfills are anything but sanitary.  

Probably one reason why the garbage can't be covered properly is that there are actually significant economic activities within sanitary landfills.

[franky1]

I am pretty sure the reason why they apply a certain membrane between the layers of land fill waste is to contain that methane release.

They dump the garbage and after a few weeks they cover it up so it doesn’t produce methane. They add a thick layer and they pile more garbage on top of that and eventually also cover it up. The bigger issue with landfill is the toxic liquids that are released and harder to control.

Well, that's the design at least. These landfills are supposed to be sanitary landfills. And before they're approved, they have to be properly designed in such a way that it is not posing any serious danger to the surrounding communities and beyond. For sure, these landfills secured all the necessary permits and clearances. Alas, satellite data disprove everything. Sanitary landfills are anything but sanitary.  

Probably one reason why the garbage can't be covered properly is that there are actually significant economic activities within sanitary landfills.

well its the lack of economics,, not profitable to do anything more than dump it.

but isnt it funny for a century it was dumped, and the very second someone mentions biogas.. suddenly they put a roof over it, collect the gas and refuse to give it away unless someone pays them