Landfill GAS
What is it?
Preventing climate change with Energy-from-Waste
LANDFILL GAS MANAGEMENT
Gas Cleaning (LFG) Challenge
CARBON Credits
 
What is it?
Methane is a true "natural gas," produced as a by-product in the breakdown of organic matter. If you've ever read a newspaper headline about grazing cows being an environmental threat and contributing to global warming worries - it's because cows are huge producers of methane gas. OK, enough said on that. But another large producer of methane gas is the nation's thousands of municipal waste landfills.

For years, landfill operators "flared off" the methane gas - burned it - as a waste byproduct of the landfill operation. But more recently, those same landfill managers have realized they have what amounts to a renewable energy resource - methane gas - and have worked to develop markets for their alternative fuel. In tonight's story, a landfill in Houston has become an alternative fuel source for powering Anheuser-Busch's brewery operations in that city and a similar brewery operation in Fairfield, California.
 
Of course, alternative energy resources like methane gas seem to make a lot of sense when oil is at $140 a barrel. Does it still make sense when oil has plummeted in price, as it has over the past six months? Analysts say it may make a little less financial sense in the short-term, but it still makes good long-term economic sense. Why? Analysts say it gives industrial companies a range of fuel options so they can hedge for the day when prices for oil or natural gas move higher again. It also allows companies to call themselves "green" because they're lessening their dependence on fossil fuels.

There's a final benefit - scientists say methane gas, trapped in the atmosphere, is about 20 times more potent per ton than carbon dioxide, when it comes to the "greenhouse effect" that is believed to be contributing to climate change. So a company using methane gas in its industrial operations can claim, accurately, to be helping to lower its output of carbon into the atmosphere. And finally, if the US government ever enacts a "carbon tax," then companies with operations using methane gas will reap a significant financial benefit as well.

Greenhouse gas emissions are primarily linked to energy consumption, such as the combustion of fossil fuels for energy generation and transportation. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, resulting from petroleum, coal and natural gas, represent 82% of total U.S. human-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Methane is another greenhouse gas, and at more than 20 times the potency of carbon dioxide, methane is ranked as a dangerous contributor to global warming. The largest source of methane emissions in the United States is landfills, but methane is also emitted from coal mines, oil and gas operations, and agriculture. Approximately 18% of global warming is due to methane emissions in the atmosphere. Methane emissions from U.S. landfills pose a significant danger because our increasing trash generation sends more municipal solid waste (MSW) to landfills each year.