Huge Potential to Exploit Landfill Gas as an Alternative Energy Source

[jpak]

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20061109005050&newsLang=en

DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c44786) has announced the addition of Landfill Gas (LFG) as an Energy Source Report to their offering.

With rising concern about energy sources, landfill gas (LFG) has emerged as an easily available, economically competitive, and proven energy resource. As of January 2005, there were 375 LFG energy (LFGE) projects in the United States, generating electricity or providing direct-use energy sources for boilers, furnaces, and other applications. Approximately 100 direct-use LFGE projects in operation burned over 70 billion cubic feet (bcf) of LFGE in 2004. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP), there are still more than 600 landfills that could be developed, offering a potential gas flow capacity of over 280 bcf per year.

LFG is a byproduct of the decay process of organic matter in municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills. The gas typically contains approximately 50% methane and 50% carbon dioxide, with some additional trace compounds. The heat value of LFG ranges from 400 to 600 British thermal units (Btu) per cubic foot and can burn in virtually any application with minor adjustments to air/fuel ratios. The use of LFG provides environmental and economic benefits, and users of LFG have achieved significant cost savings compared to traditional fuel usage due primarily to the fact that LFG costs are consistently lower than the cost of natural gas.

Additionally, because LFG is comprised of approximately 50% methane, a major greenhouse gas, reducing landfill methane emissions by utilizing it as a fuel helps businesses, energy providers, and communities protect the environment and build a more sustainable energy future.

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[silverweb]

1. It's an excellent source.

My youngest brother worked for quite a few years at a LFG generating plant in NJ. Generating plants that extract and use methane should be all over the place -- as well as in areas where peat bogs are thawing and beginning to release methane.

[kestrel91316]

2. I'm still waiting for somebody to discover the biogas

potential of HUMAN WASTE. Why am I the lone voice in the wilderness here??

:shrug:

[jpak]

3. You aren't - I believe Seattle and several other cities are using sewage biogas

Seattle is also using it to power fuel cells for heat and electricity....

[silverweb]

6. Oh, you're NOT alone!

It is already being used in some areas and many of us are calling for more efficient use of this resource.

[amandabeech]

8. I agree with you 100%.

I favor not only collecting human waste gas, but also reclamation or recycling of the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, carbon and trace elements in human waste.

[XemaSab]

11. Even bigger than that:

Animal farm waste.

It just kills me to see lagoons of manure just sitting there like so much toxic waste when that stuff could be used for fuel or fertilizer or both.

[JohnWxy]

4. Energy source just sitting there waiting to be tapped (no pun intended).

[demosincebirth]

5. One of our waste collection sites is run totally by landfill gas and

has for many years, now.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. Is it huge -- or a niche?

What's the conversion factor from billion cubic feet to barrels of sweet light crude? I'm not exactly sure, but I think it's about 5000 cubic feet of gas to one barrel of oil.

So 280 billion cubic feet would produce the energy of approximately 56 million barrels of oil. That's less than three days' equivalent petroleum at ~20 million BBL/day, the current approximate consumption rate. One percent, maybe a little less. (Corrections to my ham-handed math, as always, are welcome.)

I have absolutely no problem with developing niche energy sources. I do not knock it. I've advocated it for years. The niche sources are what could provide us with "survival" energy. And that 280 bcf figure might be subject to improvement with sludge amendments like specially-bred bacteria. But it's far less than we need to keep our civilization going.

So, no, biogas isn't huge. It could, and should, be better developed and exploited -- it could also produce organic fertilizer as a by-product, and we're going to need every gram of that we can get, too.

One down, one hundred to go ...

--p!

[4dsc]

9. one down thousands to go

Sorry to say but biomass will not resolve the energy crisis this country will face in the next decade. I do expect to see thousands of little biofuel plants around the country that all take OIL to build and maintain..

[jpak]

10. Depends on how you look at it

Landfills are the largest sources of methane emissions in the US (35% of total methane emissions). Methane has climate forcing potential ~21 times that of CO2. Capturing and oxidizing this stuff should be a climate policy priority.

Most landfill methane projects are small, 0.5-10 MW for power plants and a few million cubic feet of pipeline quality methane per day.

But they do serve as significant sources of energy for their host communities.

Collectively, they produce >9 billion kWh of electricity (total production capacity ~1500 MW) and 74 billion cubic feet of gas per year.

That's enough power and heat for ~750,000 and 1.2 million homes, respectively.

The "hugh" potential is this: there are a lot of landfills that can still be exploited and they can produce ~4 times more electricity and pipeline methane than the do today.

That's 4-6 GW of new baseload generating capacity - compared to 6 GW of new nuclear capacity from Dick Cheney's nucular giveaway program...

:evilgrin: