Garbage is dirty, but is it a clean fuel?
http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSN1230791320080521?sp=true
By Nichola Groom
Trash, rubbish, whatever you call it, the 1.6 billion tonnes of stuff the world throws away each year -- 250 kilograms per person -- is being
touted as a big potential source of clean energy.
As concerns about climate change escalate and prices on fossil fuels like oil and natural gas soar to record levels, more companies are
investing in ways to use methane gas to power homes and vehicles.
Around the world, landfills where municipal waste is collected and buried are one of the biggest producers of methane, a gas whose
greenhouse effect is 21 times worse than carbon dioxide. If instead that gas is collected and burned to generate electricity, proponents say
the resulting emissions of carbon dioxide are less harmful to the environment than the original methane.
In the United States, trash haulers like Waste Management and Allied Waste Industries Inc are rapidly expanding the number of gas-to-
energy projects at their landfills, while start-up companies are developing the latest technologies to transform garbage into ethanol, gas
and electricity.
"We are able to take that resource and turn it into real value financially for us. In a very basic sense it helps improve our earnings," said Ted
Neura, senior director of renewable energy development for Phoenix-based Allied Waste, which is turning waste into energy at 54 of its 169
U.S. landfills, with 16 more projects in the works.
The "green" credentials that go along with the waste-to-energy projects are an added benefit, Neura said.
"You begin to look at landfills a little differently when you couple them with a renewable energy project," he said.
Environmentalists aren't quite as enthusiastic. Nathanael Greene, director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, said touting the benefits of landfills was akin to putting "lipstick on a pig." Instead, we should be trying harder to reduce waste.
president of renewable energy, Paul Pabor, who said federal tax incentives introduced in 2005 and state mandates to produce a
percentage of their power from renewable sources has fueled the recent growth in such projects.
Environmentalists recognize that turning methane into power is preferable to releasing it into the air, but quibble with the characterization of
landfill gas as renewable.
"This is an environmentally preferable option, but it's not renewable in the sense that it's not something we can do forever," said the
NRDC's Greene. "Before we go adding incentives for energy production from garbage, we need to first get the incentives right so that we
are maximizing the amount of recycling we do."
RUBBISH TO REVENUE
Despite the arguments about how "green" landfill gas really is, Waste Management and Allied Waste are benefiting from their growing new
revenue streams. Allied Waste's Neura said the company generates less than 5 percent of its revenue from sales of electricity, but is
evaluating all of its landfills to determine how best to develop them.
Landfill energy projects are much smaller than gas or coal-fired power plants, producing about 5 megawatts (MW) of electricity each, on
average, Neura said. That's about enough power for 4,000 homes.
next five years to build an additional 60 landfill gas-to-energy plants.
To produce enough gas to make a power plant financially viable, landfills must contain a large amount of organic waste and have been in
operation for several years, Pabor said. At the moment, they also have to be located in states where power prices are high enough that
electricity from the landfill will be competitive with energy from the grid. Finally, they also need to be close enough to transmission lines that
the interconnection costs do not get out of hand.
"As a public company, of course, we've got to invest our fund in projects that do make a return for the investors," Pabor said in an interview.
He declined to say how much of the company's revenue comes from its energy projects.
General Electric Co is also working to adapt its gasification technology, which today is used to burn coal more cleanly, to turn municipal
waste into a cleaner-burning gas.
Solena Group, which is backed by Spanish conglomerate Acciona SA, is developing a facility in California to make renewable jet fuel from
municipal waste, and BlueFire Ethanol Fuels Inc is building its first cellulosic ethanol plant adjacent to a landfill in Lancaster, California, so
it can use municipal waste as its feedstock.
"It was the lowest risk feedstock," said Arnold Klann, president and chief executive of BlueFire Ethanol. "By putting this inside the landfill we
totally avoid the creation of a new infrastructure, because the infrastructure already exists to bring (waste) into the landfill every day and bury
it. We are taking the material that society values the least and converting it into a transportation fuel."
http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSN1230791320080521?sp=true
By Nichola Groom
- About 45 minutes north of downtown Los Angeles, a machine the size of a small truck
flattens tons of food scraps, paper towels and other household trash into the side of a
growing 300-foot pile.
To Waste Management, which operates the landfill, this is more than just a mountain of
garbage. Pipes tunneled deep into the mound extract gas from the rotting waste and
send it to a plant that turns it into electricity.
Apart from the huge-wheeled compactor driving over garbage on its surface, it looks like
an ordinary hillside. And it doesn't even smell. Yet it produces enough energy to power
2,500 homes in Southern California.
Trash, rubbish, whatever you call it, the 1.6 billion tonnes of stuff the world throws away each year -- 250 kilograms per person -- is being
touted as a big potential source of clean energy.
As concerns about climate change escalate and prices on fossil fuels like oil and natural gas soar to record levels, more companies are
investing in ways to use methane gas to power homes and vehicles.
Around the world, landfills where municipal waste is collected and buried are one of the biggest producers of methane, a gas whose
greenhouse effect is 21 times worse than carbon dioxide. If instead that gas is collected and burned to generate electricity, proponents say
the resulting emissions of carbon dioxide are less harmful to the environment than the original methane.
In the United States, trash haulers like Waste Management and Allied Waste Industries Inc are rapidly expanding the number of gas-to-
energy projects at their landfills, while start-up companies are developing the latest technologies to transform garbage into ethanol, gas
and electricity.
"We are able to take that resource and turn it into real value financially for us. In a very basic sense it helps improve our earnings," said Ted
Neura, senior director of renewable energy development for Phoenix-based Allied Waste, which is turning waste into energy at 54 of its 169
U.S. landfills, with 16 more projects in the works.
The "green" credentials that go along with the waste-to-energy projects are an added benefit, Neura said.
"You begin to look at landfills a little differently when you couple them with a renewable energy project," he said.
Environmentalists aren't quite as enthusiastic. Nathanael Greene, director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, said touting the benefits of landfills was akin to putting "lipstick on a pig." Instead, we should be trying harder to reduce waste.
- BIOGAS AROUND THE GLOBE
Biogas, another name for methane
produced from waste, manure or other
organic matter, is most developed in
Europe, where Germany has 70 percent of
the global market. In Britain, landfill gas
makes up a quarter of the country's
renewable energy, giving electricity to some
900,000 homes.
Waste-to-energy projects are also being
expanded in the developing world, where
rapid economic growth has led to a surge
in municipal waste, but efforts to collect the
methane emitted by rotting garbage have
been slower.
Last year, the World Bank announced a
deal to install a gas collection and
electricity generation system at a landfill in
Tianjin, China, saying the opportunities for
other such projects in the world's most
populous nation was enormous.
In less developed countries than China,
however, a waste infrastructure needs to
be installed before energy projects from
landfills or garbage incinerators will make
sense.
"Some of the developing countries are
fascinated by the possibilities of
introducing incineration," said Henrik
Harjula, principal administrator for the
Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development. "The problem is
normally that it is like putting a modern
facility in the jungle. There is nobody to take
care of the maintenance."
president of renewable energy, Paul Pabor, who said federal tax incentives introduced in 2005 and state mandates to produce a
percentage of their power from renewable sources has fueled the recent growth in such projects.
Environmentalists recognize that turning methane into power is preferable to releasing it into the air, but quibble with the characterization of
landfill gas as renewable.
"This is an environmentally preferable option, but it's not renewable in the sense that it's not something we can do forever," said the
NRDC's Greene. "Before we go adding incentives for energy production from garbage, we need to first get the incentives right so that we
are maximizing the amount of recycling we do."
RUBBISH TO REVENUE
Despite the arguments about how "green" landfill gas really is, Waste Management and Allied Waste are benefiting from their growing new
revenue streams. Allied Waste's Neura said the company generates less than 5 percent of its revenue from sales of electricity, but is
evaluating all of its landfills to determine how best to develop them.
Landfill energy projects are much smaller than gas or coal-fired power plants, producing about 5 megawatts (MW) of electricity each, on
average, Neura said. That's about enough power for 4,000 homes.
next five years to build an additional 60 landfill gas-to-energy plants.
To produce enough gas to make a power plant financially viable, landfills must contain a large amount of organic waste and have been in
operation for several years, Pabor said. At the moment, they also have to be located in states where power prices are high enough that
electricity from the landfill will be competitive with energy from the grid. Finally, they also need to be close enough to transmission lines that
the interconnection costs do not get out of hand.
"As a public company, of course, we've got to invest our fund in projects that do make a return for the investors," Pabor said in an interview.
He declined to say how much of the company's revenue comes from its energy projects.
- TRASH TO TRUCKS
In its latest effort, Waste Management last month joined a growing number of
companies that are using waste to power vehicles. In California, the company is
building the largest-ever facility to turn landfill gas into liquefied natural gas to
fuel its heavy-duty garbage collection trucks.
But big, established companies aren't the only ones using waste to replace
fossil fuels.
One start-up company, Boston-based Ze-gen Inc, is creating what it says is a
zero-emissions process for producing electricity from construction waste that it
is diverting from landfills. Ze-gen, which is backed by venture capital firms
Pinnacle Ventures LLC, Flagship Ventures and VantagePoint Venture Partners,
through a gasification project turns waste into syngas, a combination of
hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
Bill Davis, the company's chief executive, said Ze-gen's syngas is able to
produce more energy than competing gases without the waste having to be
buried. Ze-gen hopes to attract industrial customers that will be able to power
their factories with both their own waste and Ze-gen's technology.
General Electric Co is also working to adapt its gasification technology, which today is used to burn coal more cleanly, to turn municipal
waste into a cleaner-burning gas.
Solena Group, which is backed by Spanish conglomerate Acciona SA, is developing a facility in California to make renewable jet fuel from
municipal waste, and BlueFire Ethanol Fuels Inc is building its first cellulosic ethanol plant adjacent to a landfill in Lancaster, California, so
it can use municipal waste as its feedstock.
"It was the lowest risk feedstock," said Arnold Klann, president and chief executive of BlueFire Ethanol. "By putting this inside the landfill we
totally avoid the creation of a new infrastructure, because the infrastructure already exists to bring (waste) into the landfill every day and bury
it. We are taking the material that society values the least and converting it into a transportation fuel."
