WM to help landfill owners create own gas projects
By: Jim Johnson
October 13, 2008

America's biggest trash company is also America's biggest landfill owner and America's biggest developer of trash-to-gas renewable energy projects.

Now Waste Management Inc. wants to help the owners of other landfills, both private and public, develop their own landfill gas projects.

``As the largest operator of landfills, we understand how landfills operate and how best to leverage this valuable resources,'' said Paul Pabor, vice president of renewable energy for the company.

Waste Management already has broken ground on a landfill gas-to-energy project at the government owned Madison County landfill near Syracuse, N.Y., as part of the company's new third-party business.

Waste Management, itself, has a total of 112 energy projects at landfills, and said last year it wanted to develop a total of 60 new landfill gas-to-energy projects by 2012.

Since that announcement, the company has started or completed more than a dozen projects, the company said.

Waste Management accounts for about a fourth of all landfill gas to energy projects in the United States, where there are about 445 such projects in operation.

``Waste Management pioneered landfill gas to energy technology over two decades ago, and we operate more of these facilities than any other company in North America,'' said Paul Pabor, vice president of renewable energy for Waste Management.

``As the largest operator of landfills, we understand how landfills operate and how best to leverage this valuable resource,'' Pabor said.

After completion of the 60 new landfill gas projects, Waste Management will generate approximately 700 megawatts of energy from landfill gas. That's enough juice to operate 700,000 homes, the company said.

Along with those projects already developed, there are an estimated 535 additional landfills that are candidates to host landfill gas-to-energy projects in the United States, according to the Landfill Methane Outreach Program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Rising energy prices have people looking at many different alternative energy sources, and landfill gas typically contains 50% to 60% methane, which is also the primary ingredient in natural gas.

Landfill gas is often burned on site to create electricity that is used for landfill operations or supplied to the local power grid. The gas also is sometimes sent via pipelines to industry where it is then used as an energy source.

Contact Waste News senior reporter Jim Johnson at (937) 964-1289 or jpjohnson@crain.com