The California Air Resources Board passed a regulation last year that requires landfills throughout the state not already capturing methane to do so by 2012, with the objective of reducing 1.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
A practical example is the Altamont Landfill and Resource Recovery Facility in Livermore, California which is the world’s largest landfill gas to liquefied natural gas (LFG-to-LNG) facility. It is designed to produce up to 13,000 gallons of LNG a day by collecting gas from the natural decomposition of organic landfill waste and is intended to reduce 30,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year.
Waste Management which owns 277 landfills in the U.S. says it aims to produce 700 MW of electricity from about 170 projects in four years. The Environmental Protection Agency said that as of December last year there were about 480 operational landfill gas projects and 520 landfills as good candidates for projects.
It is surmised that under a cap-and-trade system, landfill projects potentially could become major business opportunities. About 22 percent of all methane released in the U.S.comes from landfills, and landfill owners could sell GHG offsets into the cap-and-trade system by capturing methane.
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