Uc Science Today

This is Science Today. Landfills are a large source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And new research across the state of California has found that its amount in the atmosphere might have been underestimated. Physicist Marc Fisher of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found exactly where excessive methane was coming from and why it was happening. “Most of the emissions from landfills are assumed to be gathered by landfill gas mitigation technology and if this technology is not working as effectively as it was designed to be, then more gas could have escaped to the atmosphere”. This is especially problematic for the Bay Area, where 50 percent of all the methane comes from landfills, which are ubiquitous in the region. “There is now active research identifying how to manage landfills in a way that they emit less”. As part of the solution, Fisher recommends improving methods of collecting emissions. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.