Methane gas is produced by our waste products,animals and vegetation it is plentiful why is it not harnessed?

Question

I know it is used in some processes (power stations etc.) why not for vehicles...surely it is more plentiful than bio products ??

Answer 1

at some landfills we do, but the main reason they collect it is to keep gas from building up

Answer 2

The Methane from landfills is used more than some people realise.

South of Gatwick airport is a landfill (think its called 'Brick Fields) were they collect the gas after laying a net work of pipes every few layers, this they compress to its liquid state and run a brick works furnace. There are also sites that us similar pipe networks and run stand alone generators putting electricity into the national grid.

In US they run a BMW production plant with the gas running generators to supply the electricity, its also used to heat one of the big rocket hangers at NASA assembly and launch site.

Try looking at a web site run by ONYX in UK and one run by Waste Management (WM) in USA, both these sites have info about the different schemes, they have going on and the US one has links to educational web sites as well.

Answer 3

they do at some places such as landfill sites but do you want to event something that harnesses gassesexpelled from either end of ruminating animals????

Answer 4

Do *you* want to connect a gas pipeline to the back end of a cow?

Answer 5

It has lower heat energy than natural gas. And since it IS a gas, high pressure storage is difficult. Eth/meth is a renewable liquid fuel perfect for transportation. And there is PLENTY of land for growing both food and fuel crops. The gov't currenly PAYS farmers not to grow stuff on some land!

Answer 6

Unfortunately it's energy density is much lower than gasoline. This means that you have to burn more of it for the same amount of power. Carrying more requires space and adds weight. It has the same engineering issues that any gas has but not the power.

If you are concerned about global warming it does help as Methane is much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide!