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Looking for more profits from capped landill gasses
Feb 05, 2011 4:44 pm
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Landfill methane extraction in action. "]
[/caption]The Times Union has a story out about new discussions centering on ways to harness the methane gas escaping from local capped landfills. "Efforts to harness the methane and convert it to energy have bounced around in Albany at least since 1987, but for years the city's attempts to cash in on it have proved costly and disappointing," the story runs. "In the mid-2000s, while Albany engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the former operator of the landfill's gas-to-energy plant, Minnesota Methane, over the system's inability to adequately trap the gas, neighboring Colonie struck a deal with a company that in 2007 generated more than $1 million in revenue for the town from its landfill on the northeastern part of town near Cohoes and the Mohawk River." The state Department of Environmental Conservation is currently weighing an application by Fortistar, a Westchester County company that bought Minnesota Methane, to build three, and possibly four, more electric generators at the Colonie landfill capable of churning out 6.4 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 6,400 homes. The power will be sold through the New York Power Authority to the village of Solvay in Onondaga County, outside of Syracuse. The EPA says landfill gas-to-energy programs, when properly run, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cut odors and improve local air quality, and also indirectly reduce air pollution by offsetting the need for energy produced from nonrenewable sources. It seems further efforts are now underway to profit from old garbage elsewhere in the region...
[/caption]The Times Union has a story out about new discussions centering on ways to harness the methane gas escaping from local capped landfills. "Efforts to harness the methane and convert it to energy have bounced around in Albany at least since 1987, but for years the city's attempts to cash in on it have proved costly and disappointing," the story runs. "In the mid-2000s, while Albany engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the former operator of the landfill's gas-to-energy plant, Minnesota Methane, over the system's inability to adequately trap the gas, neighboring Colonie struck a deal with a company that in 2007 generated more than $1 million in revenue for the town from its landfill on the northeastern part of town near Cohoes and the Mohawk River." The state Department of Environmental Conservation is currently weighing an application by Fortistar, a Westchester County company that bought Minnesota Methane, to build three, and possibly four, more electric generators at the Colonie landfill capable of churning out 6.4 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 6,400 homes. The power will be sold through the New York Power Authority to the village of Solvay in Onondaga County, outside of Syracuse. The EPA says landfill gas-to-energy programs, when properly run, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cut odors and improve local air quality, and also indirectly reduce air pollution by offsetting the need for energy produced from nonrenewable sources. It seems further efforts are now underway to profit from old garbage elsewhere in the region...