[GreenYes] Re: Anaerobic digestion vs. landfill methane

[Alan Muller <amuller@no.address>]

At 02:00 PM 10/25/2006 -0700, you wrote:

>I'm working on a proposal to build an anaerobic digester facility that
>would accept source separated food waste from businesses and schools
>and manure from local dairy farms for methane gas fired cogeneration.
>A landfill in our region generates energy from landfill methane and is
>in the process of expanding generating capacity.  Some who support that
>effort argue that our proposed facility would, in essence, be taking
>potential feedstock from the landfill facility.
>
>Can anyone direct me to information and data pertaining to the benefits
>of source separation and AD vs. landfill gas capture to aid me in
>articultaing a response to that claim?
>
>Thanks in advance.

In-vessel anaerobic digestion can capture almost all of the resulting 
methane.  The effectiveness of landfill gas capture is far less, thus 
leading to greater emissions with the resulting health and 
climate-change consequences.

LFG from dumps has a nasty mixture of stuff in it, related to the 
nasty mix put into dumps, as well as lots of inerts.  So the fuel 
value isn't high and it really should not be burnt without 
cleanup.  (In a case I was involved in, a utility argued that it 
could not install SCR (a type of air pollution control) on a 
generating unit because the LFG it was burning would foul the catalyst.)

Putting food waste and such into dumps contributes to the formation 
of nasty leachate that will eventually (if not now) contaminate groundwater.

Accepting LFG as a good thing, viz, a source of "renewable energy," 
blah, blah, blah, tends, as in your case, to create support for 
continued indiscriminate dumping....

Lots of stuff online to illustrate these and other points in grim detail.

am

Alan Muller, Executive Director
Green Delaware
Box 69
Port Penn, DE 19731 USA
(302)834-3466
fax (302)836-3005
greendel@no.address
www.greendel.org 


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