Gas from Garbage

Trash isn’t worthless. When it decomposes, it produces methane, which can be converted into electricity.

As the U.S. population has grown, so too has its collective output of waste – last year’s quantity exceeded 250 million tons. At modern landfills, waste managers compress and sculpt rising heaps of garbage in order to maximize capacity.

With the dirty work comes an opportunity. As garbage breaks down, the organic material produces carbon dioxide and methane, a potent gas that can be burned to produce large amounts of energy. At existing landfill plants, that method has been used to create almost 15 billion kilowatt-hours, enough to power about one million homes for a year. More than 600 energy projects at landfills pipe the gases to the surface in every U.S. state except Alaska and Hawaii.

Michael Stone, a magazine journalist, says that some states and private companies have invested in technologies to turn garbage into other valuable substances, like crude oil or ethanol. Their goal is to extract the maximum value from everything that passes through their facilities. Other countries are testing similar strategies. Belgium plans to harness gases from a landfill dating from the 1960s. Proving that garbage can be valuable, Sweden has begun importing waste from Norway to meet a growing demand for energy.

For many years I’ve exhorted my college-age children and grandchildren to major in either trash or water. This blog entry emphasizes the need for knowledge of garbage. An entry will follow soon regarding the even greater need for a dependable water source.