When landfills and wastewater treatment plants create methane as a byproduct, much of it is simply burned and its value is lost. But the gas is an energy-rich resource, and it could be recycled as a fuel, chemical feedstock or bioproduct. Capturing and converting waste methane offers an opportunity to recover energy and create useful products from an otherwise wasted gas stream. To harness that resource, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed a solid-state bioreactor that can convert methane into succinate, a valuable chemical used to make polymers