August 13, 2007
A trio of landfill methane-to-LNG demonstration projects show that biogas may be getting a toehold, if not a firm foothold, as a heavy-duty vehicle fuel resource for California.
“Landfill gas is very exciting,” says Scott Walker, supervising engineer with the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB). “There’s a trend in increasing demand for bioenergy and biofuels in the waste sector, and the technology is expanding in areas we haven’t considered before.”
The board has provided significant support to three LNG projects as part its new LNG from Landfill Gas Demonstration Grants program: the Altamont Landfill near Liver-more, run by Waste Management Inc. (WMI), and the Bowerman Landfill in Orange County and the Kiefer Road Landfill in Sacramento Country, both projects of Bellevue, Wash.–based Prometheus Energy Co. Together, the three facilities could produce as much as 40,000 gallons per day (gpd) of LNG. (There are also two small CNG-producing landfill facilities in the state: one in Los Angeles County that provides fuel for landfill equipment and one in Sonoma County that provides bus fuel.)
Gas Could Displace 5 Percent of Diesel Used In California, landfill gas—a methane-CO2 byproduct that’s mostly just burned off (or flared) and wasted—has the potential to displace as much as 150 million gallons of diesel fuel a year, said WMI’s Chuck White during a presentation to the CIWMB at its July 10 workshop on bioenergy and biofuels. That’s 5 percent of all diesel used in the state. And tapping all recoverable biomethane (from agricultural waste, stranded wells, and other sources) for transportation could displace 900 million gallons a year—about one-third of California’s diesel consumption.
WMI expects the $12 million Altamont Landfill facility, which it’s developing in conjunction with the Gas Technology Institute and Lindy BOC, to produce 13,000 gallons of LNG per day, displacing more than 2.8 million gallons of diesel annually. The plant is expected to be fully operational in 12 to 14 months; the fuel will power about 200 waste collection and transport trucks and possibly other heavy-duty LNG vehicles.
For more information, contact CalNGV News at editor@cngvc.org.
Courtesy of California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition.