Tag: methane

Capturing Wasted Methane From Landfills

  • A landfill is full of things people don't consider useful anymore. One group begs to differ. (Photo by Roberto Burgos S.)

The landfill is often seen as the end of the line… the burial ground of our trash. But one company says there’s still something to gain from that buried garbage. It’s planning to build a new plant to retrieve one final product from all of our trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kasler has the story:

Transcript

The landfill is often seen as the end of the line… the burial ground of our
trash. But one company says there’s still something to gain from that buried
garbage. It’s planning to build a new plant to retrieve one final product from
all of our trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kasler has the
story:


You probably don’t think of landfills as “green.” But Steve Wilburn does.
Wilburn is the president of FirmGreen. He says he knows different ways to
turn byproducts of landfills into useful energy.


First, capture the methane that’s produced when all that garbage stews
underground. Second, use it as fuel to generate electricity. Third, turn it into compressed gas for trucks. And finally, mix
it with soybean oil to make soy diesel.


Steve Wilburn says it’s an ambitious project.


“This is the first of its kind in the world. The Green Energy Center concept is
something I came up with about four years ago, and as we explored for ways to
implement it, we needed a centerpiece, a technology that was missing, and that
was to clean up the landfill gas in a very cost-effective way.”


FirmGreen is building what it calls its Green Energy Center right next to the
landfill in Columbus, Ohio. Mike Long is with the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio – SWACO for short. Long says right
now, there’s no practical use for the methane and carbon dioxide produced by the rotting garbage in the landfill.


“Currently, SWACO’s control technology is to have a flare where we burn off the
gases to keep it from getting up into the atmosphere. But the new technology,
we will take that gas and make it into energy and consumer products rather than
just simply burning it and exhausting it.”


Instead of burning those landfill gases, they’ll be redirected a small
electric generator operated by FirmGreen. The electricity will be sold back to
SWACO to power its main office and its fleet garage. That’ll start in just a
few months.


Later, FirmGreen will convert methane into compressed natural gas. That will
be used to fuel SWACO’s vehicles, which could save the waste authority an
estimated 100 thousand dollars a year.


FirmGreen’s President, Steve Wilburn says the final part of the project is the
real profit maker for his company: turning methanol into biodiesel.


“When we create
methanol, we then have the bridge to the hydrogen economy because ethanol is an
excellent hydrogen carrier. It’s also used in the manufacture and production of
biodiesel. Ohio is a large soybean producing state. So we’ll take our green
methanol and we’ll blend that with the soy oil and we’re going to create
biodiesel.”


When the FirmGreen biodiesel processing facility is up and running, it will
need 69 thousand acres of soybeans to produce 10 million gallons of biodiesel
annually. FirmGreen already has a contract with Mitsubishi Gas Chemical
Company to provide 6 million gallons of biodiesel a year. FirmGreen also hopes
to interest the growing hydrogen fuel cell industry.


“Biofuels” have their critics, who are concerned that it takes as much energy
or more energy to create biofuels than they produce. Mike Long at SWACO says
he’s heard that before, but it doesn’t apply to this project.


“The
energy is already here, and is being flared off right now at our landfill. There’s no recovery of the energy, no beneficial
use. So for those who argue that this process would be a consumer of energy, it’s not a net consumer, and right now, we’re wasting energy.”


Long and Wilburn point to statistics from the U.S. EPA. They says the data show
the Green Energy Center will have the same effect as reducing oil consumption by
more than twenty thousand barrels a year. They say that’s like taking 2,000 cars off the road.


Sam Spofforth is with the Central Ohio Clean Fuels Coalition. He says even
when factoring in the fuel used by trucks transporting the methanol to the
remote biodiesel processing facilities, the project still looks green to him.


“In terms of biodiesel, it’s about three point two energy units out for every one energy
unit in. What is even more exciting about this project – methane
gas is about twenty times as potent as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. So the
fact that they’re using methane that would otherwise be vented into the air
makes the net emissions of those greenhouse gas even more positive.”


The Green Energy Center in Ohio is the first in the nation, but a second one
is planned to be built near Saint Louis, Missouri. With giant landfills venting
off methane in places around the country, if these two make money, it’s a
pretty sure bet others will be built in the near future.


For the GLRC, I’m Karen Kasler.

Related Links

Farm Technology Harvests Trendy Subsidies

  • Ethanol often is made from corn, and one of the by-products, distillers grains, can be eaten by cows (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

It’s rare when a factory and a mega-farm can help reduce pollution. But a project planned in the Midwest promises just that. The project would produce a fuel additive that is thought to reduce air pollution; provide a market for farm goods; create scores of jobs… all while not harming the environment. The Ohio project is getting millions of dollars of help from the state and federal governments. But some people doubt the project will accomplish all it promises. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamara Keith
reports:

Transcript

It’s rare when a factory and a mega-farm can help reduce pollution. But a project planned in the Midwest promises just that. The project would produce a fuel additive that is thought to reduces air pollution, provide a market for farm goods, create scores of jobs – all while not harming the environment. The Ohio project is getting millions of dollars of help from the state and federal governments. But some people doubt the project will accomplish all it promises. Tamara Keith reports:


The project is called Harrison Ethanol. It will include an ethanol factory, using millions of bushels of corn to produce the gasoline additive. At the same location, thousands of dairy and beef cattle will live in fully enclosed barns. And then there’s the small power plant, which will be fueled by manure produced by the cattle. Wendel Dreve is the project’s director.


“I think the nicest way of describing our project is it’s a vertically-integrated, agriculturally-based industrial development.”


Dreve began working on the project nearly 4 years ago. He’s retired from the oil and gas industry and built a home in eastern Ohio farm country. His neighbors approached him about starting up a corn-powered ethanol factory – something that has not existed in Ohio in a decade.


“I told them that I didn’t think we could build a ethanol plant in Ohio because there are no state subsidies, so we had to figure out a way to raise the revenue streams internally and the only way we could figure out to do that was to employ animals.”


The 12-thousand cattle housed on site, will eat the main byproduct of ethanol production, a corn mush called distillers grains. The cattle will generate money too, from sales of milk and meat. But the cattle will create manure… lots of manure… about 50 million gallons of it a year. Dreve has a solution for that, too: a power-generating anaerobic digester.


“It eliminates nearly all of the odor, it processes all of the wastes from the entire facility. So it’s like an industrial waste treatment plant on site.”


60 times a day, manure will be flushed out of the animal barns and into the digester. A large, cement structure, where the manure is broken down by microbes.


“And at the other end, you get water and methane and carbon dioxide and some solids.”


The methane will run power generators, creating “green energy,” which can be sold at a premium. The carbon dioxide from the manure will be sold to make carbonated sodas. This would be the first anaerobic digester powered by cattle manure in Ohio, and one of only a handful nationwide. Dreve says his digester will be much better for the environment than open-air manure lagoons, the cheaper method most commonly used by farmers.


But not everyone agrees. Bill Weida is an economist and director of the Grace Factory Farm Project which opposes large concentrated animal farms. Weida says most anaerobic digesters are paid for with some kind of government assistance. Harrison Ethanol is no exception. The project received a 500-thousand-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the digester.


“No one in their right mind who is looking for an economic investment would build a digester. The only reason you’d build one is if you had some sort of a government subsidy that would help pay for it.”


Harrison Ethanol also is receiving seventy-million dollars in financing assistance from the state of Ohio. In fact, the company indicates it got some very good legal and accounting help, to find the perfect location for the project to take advantage of state and federal tax credits. Add to that federal ethanol subsidies and federal subsidies for corn production, and Harrison Ethanol is getting plenty of help from taxpayers.


Ken Cook is executive director of the Environmental Working Group. He says ethanol might reduce air pollution and reliance on foreign oil, but it is not economically viable without those huge taxpayer subsidies.


“The worry is that what we’re really doing is bailing out failed agriculture policy with heavily subsidized energy policy. We’re going into the corn industry with another set of subsidies to basically turn corn, that would have been exported at a loss, into corn that is used to make fuel at a loss to taxpayers.”


That’s not how state officials see it. Bill Teets is a spokesman for the Department of Development which has been working to bring several ethanol plants to Ohio.


“We think that this is a great project because you help farmers, you create manufacturing, you have something that helps benefit the environment and it seems to be a good type of project that we can really benefit from.”


And if everything goes as planned, Wendel Dreve will build 2 more ethanol and cattle operations in Ohio. He’s already secured tax dollars from state and federal sources for those plants.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamara Keith.

Related Links

Epa Targets Ethanol Plants for Cleanup

The U.S. EPA is finishing a 17-month study of the emissions at ethanol plants in the Great Lakes region. As a result, the EPA is asking ethanol producers to clean up their plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

The U.S. EPA is finishing a 17-month study of the emissions at ethanol plants in the
Great Lakes region. As a result, the EPA is asking ethanol producers to
clean up their plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


The tests of the ethanol plants show unexpectedly high levels of carbon dioxide,
methanol, and formaldehyde in their emissions. Monte Shaw is a spokesperson for the
Renewable Fuels Association. He says the industry will comply with the EPA’s request:


“All of the industry is committed to doing whatever’s necessary, if anything. Some plants won’t have
to change a thing. But if there are some where the EPA wants to make modifications, we’re
committed to working with them, and addressing their concerns as quickly as possible.”


Shaw says most bigger plants already have the controls in place, and the smaller ones
that are in violation will comply with the request. Critics of the EPA including the Clean Air
Trust and the American Lung Association say the changes need to be a requirement, not a
voluntary program as it is now.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

Epa Running on Greener Energy

Three U.S. Environmental Protection Agency research facilities in Cincinnati will start using green energy this October. The Bush Administration recently urged government offices to be the first to conserve power. The EPA began changing power sources two years ago. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston has details:

Transcript

Three U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Research Facilities in Cincinnati will start using green energy power this October. The Bush Administration recently urged government offices to be the first to conserve power. The EPA began changing power sources two years ago. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston has details.


A mix of wind and landfill gas energies will power the southern Ohio facilities.
The EPA has contracted with companies in Pennsylvania and Illinois to provide energy. EPA spokesman Chris Paulitz says green energy costs six percent more than conventional power. Bus he says it’s a chance for the agency to “practice what it preaches.” The EPA began changing energy sources at some of its buildings in 1999. Paulitz says that when its Richmond, California Plant started using power generated by methane gas. By early next year, U.S EPA plans to have facilities in Ohio, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Washington State powered solely by green energy. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Dump Generates Creative Power Solution

Methane is one of the main by-products of landfills. It’s also a
fuel, which can be used to create electricity. In 1978, the federal
government began requiring utilities to buy this methane-generated
power. But as energy prices dropped, methane producers found their
profits disappeared as well. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Karen Kelly reports, they’re looking for new alternatives:

Transcript

Methane is one of the main by-products of landfills. It’s also a fuel, which can be used to create

electricity. In 1978, the federal government began requiring utilities to buy this

methane-generated power. But as energy prices dropped, methane producers found their profits

disappeared as well. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, they’re looking

for new alternatives:


(sound of blower)


Frank Lavadera stands proudly next to a small, green pipe sticking out of the ground. It’s

attached to a fan, which is sucking methane gas out of this landfill in Saratoga Springs, New

York.


“It pulls the gas from the landfill to this particular point and pushes it across the street to

where the engine system is, to where it’s used.”


(sound of skating)


Where it’s used in the town’s skating rink. The landfill produces enough methane to provide

eighty-five percent of the rink’s electricity. The methane is pumped into a generator. That

produces the power that freezes the ice, keeps the rink lit, and heats the water for the showers.

Lavadera designed the project. He’s an engineer at Cluf, Harbor and Associates in nearby Albany.

He was originally hired to close the city’s landfill, which is filled with horse manure from the

nearby racetrack.


“One of the things we found was that this particular landfill had a tremendous amount of methane

gas, above and beyond what would normally be expected. And as a result, we needed to collect this

methane as opposed to just passively venting gas into the atmosphere. But simultaneously, the city

constructed this ice skating rink, and it was very natural connection that we’d match the two up

together to utilize the gas.”


The city is now saving fifty-thousand dollars a year in utility costs. At one time, they probably

would have sold the electricity to a power company and made a profit. Utilities are required to

buy methane-generated electricity from landfills at the same price it costs the utility to make

it. The problem is, the overall price of producing electricity has dropped drastically. In New

York State, it’s gone from six cents per kilowatt-hour in the 1980’s to about two cents today.


Shelley Cohen is head of the EPA’s methane outreach program.


“Utility prices in many states are still very cheap and they’re not able to offer prices for the

landfill gas that make it economical to develop a project. That being said, the landfill and the

landfill developer generally look for other options for developing gas projects.”


Cohen knows about eighty landfills in the U.S. that have found other ways to recycle their

methane. Many simply use it themselves to heat their buildings and run generators. Others sell it

to neighbors. There are asphalt and paper companies that use methane to run their boilers. And in

Canada, the methane from one landfill heats four greenhouses. Cohen says these projects are making

good use of one of the most potent greenhouse gases.


“The environmental benefits are tremendous. Because you’re capturing the methane from the

landfill. You’re reducing those emissions from the landfill and then you’re somehow utilizing it,

which means you’re also offsetting the need to use other forms of polluting energy, such as coal.

So it has this double environmental benefit.”


But Frank Lavadera says landfills still shy away from these projects. For one, they have to build

a system to convert the methane to electricity. In Saratoga Springs, that cost more than a million

dollars. And two, the farther the methane has to travel, the more expensive it’ll be. So, they

need to have a willing neighbor.


“That’s what made this project work very well, is we had the ice skating rink directly across the

street from the landfill. That probably is what will drive methane gas projects in the future as

time goes on, is matching up landfills with high users that might be close by so they could

effectively utilize the electricity.”


There’s another possibility on the horizon. Environmental groups are pushing for a federal tax

credit to make it easier for landfills to produce electricity. John Skinner is president of the

Solid Waste Association of North America.


“Our proposal is for a federal tax credit for landfills that use the methane gas as a fuel and

that will adjust the economics so that it’s economically feasible to do so. There’s probably

another 250 to 300 that would come on-line that won’t come on-line otherwise.”


Skinner says a previous tax credit helped create more than two-hundred new projects. But it

expired two years ago. The current proposal is expected to come to a vote in the House sometime

next year.


(sound of skating)


Meanwhile, the more creative landfill owners are forging ahead. They have to find a way to get rid

of their methane. But rather than seeing it as a waste product, they view it as a resource. Now,

they just have to find someone who’s willing to use it.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Unusual Clouds Indicating Climate Change?

Some unusual clouds were spotted over parts of the western United States
this summer. Those who have seen them say they’re strangely beautiful;
they’re visible only at night, and appear silvery-white and luminous.
They’re called noctilucent (knock-til-loo-cent) clouds. But as the Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson reports, the clouds may be a sign that
all’s not well in the upper atmosphere:

Fuel Cells in the Home

Automotive fuel cells have received a lot of attention lately. The fuel
cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into useable electricity. The electricity
they produce is clean, quiet and cost effective, but as The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Hammond reports, this same technology is likely to
power homes before it powers automobiles:

Global Warming in the Peatlands

President Clinton has said this summer’s record breaking heat is evidence of global warming, and he blasted congress for ignoring the problem. Most scientists are firmly convinced that global warming is already underway, but there is still some scientific uncertainty about what effects it might have. Around the world, scientists are looking for answers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports on one research project now underway:

Landfill Golf Takes Off

For years, developers have been have been re-using old dumps by buildingover them. Some of these projects have been successful. The HarborsideInternational Golf Center in Chicago, built over a landfill, is one of themost popular in the city. But other cities have been forced to CLOSElandfill golf courses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie GrantCooper reports on the first landfill golf courses in Ohio, and the lessonsits developers are learning from older projects: