Environment
Bioreactors housing methane-eating bacteria could offer a portable, off-grid solution for soaking up methane leaks from sites like landfills and coal mines
Landfills are a major source of methane emissions
Norma Jean Gargasz / Alamy Stock Photo
Methane leaks from sites like rice paddies, landfills, dairy farms and coal mines could be plugged with the help of gas-guzzling bacteria, helping to curb near-term global warming.
Later this year, researchers in the US will deploy a bioreactor filled with a specially bred strain of methane-eating bacteria at a landfill site in Washington.
They hope the field test will prove that these bacteria, known as methanotrophs, can be deployed in bioreactors to harvest methane from…
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