Apr 30, 2008 9:23 pm US/Pacific
Livermore Landfill Gas To Become Fuel For Trucks
LIVERMORE (BCN) ―
A plan to begin converting landfill gas into clean vehicle fuel at a Bay Area facility by 2009 was announced Wednesday through a partnership between Waste Management and Linde North America.
The $15.5 million program, which will purify and liquefy gas created by organic waste at the Altamont Landfill near Livermore, is slated to receive grants from the California Integrated Waste Management Board, the California Air Resources Board and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, according to Waste Management spokeswoman Jennifer Andrews.
The decomposing waste in a landfill creates gas that is commonly flared or burned off, Andrews said.
A gas collection system at the Altamont Landfill currently uses some of the gas to produce energy, Andrews said. Once the facility to create liquefied natural gas is complete, that electricity may be used to power the process, she said.
The process will include collecting and purifying the natural gas, leaving methane, Andrews said. The methane gas is then chilled to 260 degrees below zero, liquefying it, Andrews said.
The product will be used to fuel Waste Management's fleet of garbage and recycling collection trucks that have been converted to run on natural gas, according to Andrews. Some of the liquefied natural gas may also be sold, she said.
Program officials estimate landfill gas could produce 13,000 gallons of liquefied natural gas each day, beginning in 2009 when the facility is scheduled to open. The facility will be the largest of its kind, according to Waste Management, the largest waste management company in North America.
"Natural gas is already the cleanest burning fuel available for our collection trucks, and the opportunity to use recovered landfill gas offers enormous environmental benefits to the communities we serve," Duane Woods of Waste Management said in a prepared statement.
The program would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30,000 tons each year, according to Linde North America, a gases and engineering company.
"This is a key milestone in helping us develop the facilities needed to produce more than 200 million gallons of clean transportation fuel each year from the garbage in California's landfills," Linda Adams of the California Environmental Protection Agency said in a prepared statement.
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