Landfills Methane Gas

Methane, a primary component of landfill gas, is a greenhouse gas more than 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Nationwide in 2007 about 435 projects provided more than 10.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and delivered 79 billion cubic feet per year of landfill gas to corporate and government users, and produced energy equivalent to powering roughly 810,000 homes and heating nearly 547,000 homes each year.

Landfill gas is the natural by-product of the decomposition of solid waste in landfills and is comprised primarily of carbon dioxide and methane. By preventing emissions of methane (a powerful greenhouse gas) through the development of landfill gas energy projects, landfill facilities can now produce electricity naturally from decomposing waste and turn it into money-saving electricity to offset the costs associated with operating the landfills. . Until now, the landfill gas, which is about 50 percent methane, was extracted through wells and pipes buried in the landfill and combusted in a flare. Now the gas is now diverted from the flare to the landfill gas plant, which is equipped with two specialized engines designed to burn landfill gas. The landfill gas is processed to natural gas quality and used in clean-burning power generation equipment to generate renewable power. The project of transforming the waste into usable electricity includes installation of a gas collection system in the landfill, a generator that runs on landfill gas, a power line connection to the grid, and an electronic monitoring system.

Here is a nice layout of "How Landfills Work".

Sami
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Don't Throw your Trash in my Backyard!!

It's started up again...New York City is dumping it's trash into Pennsylvania. Now don't get me wrong, they do have an agreement of dumping their trash into Pennsylvanians landfills, but they are getting full. Pa has a good system of utilizing the methane gas to run the landfills systems, but only certain trash is usable. Therefore New York City needs to start enforcing people to recycle, by offering jobs and uses for the recycled material, and by creating less packaging for their products, which would result in less trash. Right now Pa is having to either create more landfills or expand the existing ones already. That means it'll take away from the beauty the farm lands and the forests of Pa.

Pennsylvania isn't the only state feeling the impact of the trash, there are others such as Virginia and Michigan. I think the governors need to keep the trash in their own states and utilize the methane gas like Pa is doing. Maybe if the methane gas has more of a purpose, then more states would consider creating it for themselves.

And who really wants to live next to a landfill?

Sami