How and Why You Should Get Energy from Landfill Gas

Methane is generated within 6 to eighteen months after solid waste is put in a landfill. Top production starts roughly a year after deposit in most established landfills, but serious volumes of the gas can be generated for 20 or more years after that when a landfill gas to energy scheme is installed, depending on the individual landfill traits. Generating energy from landfill gas in such landfill gas to energy projects does not only mean decreasing its danger towards our climate ; it also serves then as an alternative to fossil fuels,eg natural gas.

Methane produced by the landfill in a'no brainer kind of way' should be picked up, processed, and piped to a landfill gas to energy project for all decent sized landfills for over an input tonnage of waste above 50,000 tonnes per annum, for average domestic waste.


Such a waste-to-energy ( landfill gas to energy ) project is a demonstration of how we, as a society, can transform long-held climate changing practices into more environmentally sustainable actions. As an example, there are way more than four hundred landfill gas to energy power projects today in the US already. [**] the unfortunate worry is that between a half and a third of all the gas will still escape to cause the greenhouse gas heating effect on our planet and accelerate climate change. The reason is because even lining and capping won't stop a large amount of the gas escaping.

Methane is around 21 times more strong than carbon-dioxide as a greenhouse gas and allowing methane escape to the atmosphere would have heavy climate change implications.


Methane is a particularly strong greenhouse gas and because of that is a key contributor to world climate change.

This is also important for landfill gas to energy projects as when released into the air, it isn't only a greenhouse gas it also contributes to local air pollution.

Many countries have their own schemes to encourage renewable energy production life landfill gas to energy projects. The consumer of a Green Certificate owns a claim to a subsidy for providing environmental savings ( such as CO2 reduction ) that results from the production of that electricity.

This is all part of a bigger picture where, to meet future energy needs at the smallest cost possible, energy planners have chose a mix of generation that will include a growing portion of renewable energy from landfill gas ( landfill gas to energy ), wind and solar turbine energy. This is in addition to the more traditional sorts of power plants.


Using methane to generate energy in landfill gas to energy projects inspires more firms to develop better ways to collect the gas and thereby reduce emissions into the atmosphere. For that reason, energy recovery from methane, where economically workable, is of considerable benefit to the environment.

For an example of the advantages of landfill gas to energy, the US Environmental Protection Agency's landfill Methane Outreach Program has reportedly aided in developing over 325 landfill gas to energy projects in the past 12 years. These have reduced methane emissions by about 90 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent. Countrywide there are reports that there were more than four hundred landfill gas to energy projects in operation in 2006 alone, these projects provided over 10 billion kilo watt hours of electricity and seventy five bill cubic feet of landfill gas to corporate and government end users.