How many landfills capture methane

With these additional revenue streams, projects with new capture systems can be profitable. Variations in the price at which the electricity or gas is sold should be accounted for in calculating the revenue from a project.

In all 29 states that have Renewable Portfolio Standards, LFG is included as a renewable energy source; LFG can, therefore, often be sold for a higher price than other energy. Additionally, many projects produce electricity for use on-site. For those projects, the calculated rate should be based on the typically higher price at which the landfill buys its electricity. Landfill gas projects also bring jobs to local communities.

A typical 3 MW electricity project is estimated to directly create five construction jobs and indirectly create another 20 to 26 jobs through economic development. For a direct use project, a five mile pipeline would directly create at least seven jobs to complete the installation and would indirectly create another 17 to 22 jobs.

There are a number of tax credits for which LFG projects can qualify. Projects that begin production by the end of and produce electricity for an unrelated third party can qualify for the Renewable Electricity Production Tax Credit PTC , which provides a tax credit of 1.

The ITC may be up to 30 percent of the cost of the project to the facility and does not require that the electricity produced be sold to a third party. Additionally, there are a number of loan programs from the U. Department of Energy, the U.

Department of Commerce, and the U. In , the World Bank published an assessment of the capital costs of investments in LFG capture for electric power production World Bank, One plant assessed was a hypothetical 5-MW electric power station in the USA, with the following performance assumptions.

For this LFG recovery plant, the following capital cost assumptions were made based on experience with municipal solid waste plants :. Based on these assumptions the capital cost, operation and management costs, and other costs associated were annualised to estimate generation costs as follows:. For the calculations, it has been assumed that the feedstock would be provided free of charge.

However, a provision for royalties to an assumed municipal corporation from the sale of electricity and manure was included under variable costs. This estimation was then refined including future cost projections and uncertainty analysis. Based on this capital cost projection, the electricity generation costs for the plant would vary between USD 0. These figures provide insight in the financial aspects of LFG capture and use projects, although the order of magnitude of the cost items may be different across countries and between industrialised and developing countries.

As explained above, LFG capture and use projects have been established under the CDM, where they generally strongly benefit from the value of the Certified Emissions Reductions to be generated through the projects. For example, the Landfill Gas to Energy Facility project at the Nejapa Landfill Site in El Salvador has presented the following overview of how the internal rate of return of the project changes with on changes in revenues and costs, and the market value of greenhouse gas emission reduction.

Connecting countries to climate technology solutions. Toggle navigation. Breadcrumb Home. Methane Capture at Landfills for Electricity and Heat. Waste management. Opportunities enabled:. Reduce GHG emissions. Technology group:. Waste Management. Enteric fermentation. A paper by Oonk evaluated the efficiency of landfill gas capture projects; it reported that gas collection efficiency depends on the phase of the landfill and varies widely — with efficiencies ranging from 10 to 90 percent.

A more direct — and likely more successful — way to reduce landfill methane would be to reduce the amount of methane-generating materials going into landfills in the first place. With some 40 percent of all food wasted in the United States, reducing food waste offers big opportunities. Last year the EPA and U. Department of Agriculture set a target to reduce food waste by 50 percent by , with programs for public education and commercial policies.

Composting can help reduce the landfill methane problem by keeping some organic material out of the trash. After reducing food waste, the next best step is turning what remains, along with yard waste, into compost rather than sending it to landfills, says Neil Seldman, cofounder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit that helps communities fight landfills and waste incinerators and institute composting, recycling and zero-waste programs.

More and more cities, such as San Francisco and Seattle, are moving in this direction. According to Seldman, some U. Other cities are putting in policies to encourage backyard composting, he says. In places with such goals, Waste Management operates composting facilities as well as landfills, says Kelly. While composting can emit methane too, specific practices can be used to minimize production.

While these facilities can stand alone, they are increasingly being incorporated into wastewater plants that treat sewage. Waste Management has set up pilot projects for this technology in Los Angeles and New York and will soon take it to Boston too. Milwaukee and Philadelphia are taking the same principle to the people, encouraging them to install garbage disposal units in their kitchen plumbing, said Seldman. Innovative direct uses of medium-Btu gas include firing pottery and glass-blowing kilns; powering and heating greenhouses; and evaporating waste paint.

Current industries using LFG include auto manufacturing, chemical production, food and beverage processing, pharmaceuticals, cement and brick manufacturing, wastewater treatment, consumer electronics and products, paper and steel production, and prisons and hospitals.

LFG can be upgraded to renewable natural gas RNG , a high-Btu gas, through treatment processes by increasing its methane content and, conversely, reducing its CO 2 , nitrogen and oxygen contents. Options for use of RNG include thermal applications, to generate electricity or as fuel for vehicles. The RNG can be used locally at the site where the gas is produced or can be injected into natural gas transmission or distribution pipelines for delivery to another location.

A municipal solid waste MSW landfill is a discrete area of land or excavation that receives household waste, and may also receive other types of nonhazardous wastes. LFG collection systems can be configured as vertical wells or horizontal trenches. The most common method is drilling vertical wells into the waste mass and connecting the wellheads to lateral piping that transports the gas to a collection header using a blower or vacuum induction system.

Horizontal trench systems are useful in areas of active filling. Some landfills use a combination of vertical wells and horizontal collectors. System operators monitor parameters to maximize system efficiency. Using LFG in an energy recovery system usually requires some treatment of the gas to remove excess moisture, particulates and other impurities.

The type and extent of treatment depend on site-specific LFG characteristics and the type of energy recovery system. Some end uses, such as pipeline injection or vehicle fuel projects, require additional cleaning and compression of the LFG. Skip to main content. Contact Us. Basic Information about Landfill Gas.