TreeHugger Picks: Landfill Gas, From Trash to Alternative Energy
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 05. 7.07
Landfill gas (LFG) isn't quite as sexy as some other alternative energy sources like wind or solar; still, TreeHugger thinks its an important part of our collective renewable energy portfolio. Plus, it's cool that landfills (and the stuff that fills them) can do a little more than sit there and rot. Here are some of our picks for the things LFG can do.
1) This biodiesel plant was billed as the first "renewable energy plant to run on renewable energy".
2) FirmGreen is just one company helping turn gas into energy.
3) Capstone Turbine Corp. offer up an example of a smaller-scale alternative for places like farms and grocery stores.
4) Interface was the recipient of the US EPA's Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP) "Energy Partner of the Year" award for their work to convert methane from a local landfill into renewable energy.
5) BMW is using LFG to power a paint plant, saving them upwards of $1 million per year. Not to be left out, GM now boasts the largest corporate use of landfill gas in the U.S.
I just wanted to make sure:
Methane creates a greater global warming impact than CO2, so burning it to power homes as it vents from cattle and landfills is a win-win for the environment and electricity consumers.
Is this true? Or am I under the wrong impression?
Tim, I believe that's right. I recall seeing figures saying that methane is many times more harmful than carbon in terms of global warming.
It's really nice to see landfills become an asset rather than a liability. I remember going to visit the RI dump in 1995 as part of a business school trip. They were already using methane for power generation and recycling everything they could. The dump manager said they were actually profitable and conserved dump space that would last them for decades. Back then it was revolutionary. These days it should be the norm.
GJ
http://www.60in3.com
We breathe in oxygen
and exhale carbon dioxide.
We should never forget
we fart methane, too.
There's a methane economy as well as a hydrogen economy. There's a methane cycle as well as a carbon cycle and controlling our contributions to that methane cycle could be crucial to our effect on global atmospheric chemistry.
8 of the TOP 50 LOW-CARBON PIONEERS of CNBC European Business companies (http://cnbceb.com/2007/04/20/top-50-lowcarbon-pioneers/) are doing waste recycling and biofuels. 7 companies are doing solar. 12 companies, the largest sector, are involved with investment, finance, and carbon trading. Money talks and talks louder the more zeroes there are to the right of the first number.
Waste equals food is one of Bill McDonough's ecological design principles. Waste not want not is as true today as when Benjamin Franklin first published it. [Update the adage as a button, a bumpersticker, an elevator speech?]
Zero emissions, as in zero defects from a production line, as in W Edwards Deming's statistical quality control, as in Total Quality Management and Total Environmental Quality. That should be one of our goals.
You know, at least as a thought experiment.