“If you can smell it, we can sell it!”

Electricity, vehicles and functioning technology are virtually non-existent in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Mad Max - non-existent, that is, outside the seedy community of Bartertown, where Tina Turner’s minions have stumbled upon a seemingly-oxymoronic “clean” renewable energy source in the methane from pig feces.

The harvesting of methane from waste is not just cinematic fantasy, as it turns out. A landfill in Fargo, North Dakota is turning trash into cash in a way that would’ve made Auntie Entity stand up and take notice. When complaints from nearby residents prompted city officials to design a system for burning off the stinky methane generated by decomposing garbage at the city’s landfill site, officials at a nearby Cargill oilseed processing plant had other ideas - Why waste the potent gas by burning it off when it can instead be harnessed?

Last year alone, the methane gas that was formerly escaping into the atmosphere and noses of nearby residents generated almost $2 million for the city. Enough, says Fargo city commissioner Mike Williams, that the city did not have to raise property taxes on its residents. “If you can smell it we can sell it,” says Williams. “That which used to just be right under our nose turned into cash and new energies.”