Alliance Landfill will send gas to generator

It took six years to figure out, but the Alliance Landfill in Taylor has found a new way to market the natural gas emitted by rotting garbage. The facility, which is owned by Houston-based Waste Management, announced on Thursday it’s beginning construction of a processing station and pipeline to send the gas to a nearby electricity generator.

Until 2003, the landfill had been selling the gas to a company that used chemical processes to extract methane from the mixture. Since that company left the region, the gas has simply been burned off. “It’s taken us this long to come up with a replacement project to harvest this terrific green energy that’s in our landfill,” company spokesman John Hambrose said. “We decided long ago that waste-to-energy projects are very valuable. It’s just that, here at Alliance, it took us most of these six years to put together the partnerships.”

The project, expected to be completed by the end of the year, is projected to provide enough gas daily to supply energy to 20,000 homes and should last for at least 20 years beyond the operation of the landfill. The current 196 acres approved for disposal are permitted through 2010, but the company is seeking permitting for an 87-acre expansion at the 742-acre facility that would extend its operating life about another 20 years.

Hambrose didn’t have details on whether the added revenue might reduce its bills to customers, but added “it’s already generated jobs in terms of all the construction involved in this project.”

The company plans to capture the gas by boring holes through the piles of waste and inserting perforated pipes. About 300 such “wells” already exist at the landfill. The gas, which is naturally created during the decomposition of organic material, would be funneled to a processing station through suction. At the processing station, the gas, which is roughly half methane, half carbon dioxide and a small amount of other gases, will be dried, chilled and compressed to 60 pounds per square inch.

From there, a 19-mile pipeline will take the gas, “as is,” to PEI Power Corp.’s cogeneration plant in Archbald, Hambrose said. UGI/Penn Natural Gas will build and operate the pipeline. Various other local contractors are building the rest of the system.

The project will add to Waste Management’s existing waste-to-energy operations throughout North America that supply enough material to power about 1 million homes.