Last Wednesday on February 18th I attended a lecture given by a representative of Curtis Engines about generating power from the methane gas produced from landfills. Curtis Engines started in 1944 providing power generation equipment and has recently started using their equipment to transform methane gas into power. They currently have 3 megawatt power plant at the Central Landfill Facility in Worcester County and 6.8 megawatt power plant with plans to expand at the Brown Station Road Landfill in Prince George’s County.
Converting methane into power is a great way to provide electricity due to its outstanding reliability and the ability to breakdown the harmful green house. Methane gas is around 20 times more effective than carbon dioxide in its ability to trap infrared energy, so it is a major contributor to global warming. If methane is that harmful, and cost are relatively cheap to convert it to power, than why not turn every capable landfill into a power plant?
One thing that I am interested in is other possibilities of methane production. Could the methane gas produced by wetlands have potential? In Rwanda there is methane produced in the lake beds of Lake Kivu that has potential to provide energy for a huge part of the energy poor nation. Check out this link –http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/23/world/fg-lake23
In this link http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/02/10/banana-methane-will-power-cars-in-australia/ There is talk about using methane from the fermenting of produce to power natural gas cars in Australia. Methane gas has the potential to becoming a leading energy resource in the near future.
Converting methane into power is a great way to provide electricity due to its outstanding reliability and the ability to breakdown the harmful green house. Methane gas is around 20 times more effective than carbon dioxide in its ability to trap infrared energy, so it is a major contributor to global warming. If methane is that harmful, and cost are relatively cheap to convert it to power, than why not turn every capable landfill into a power plant?
One thing that I am interested in is other possibilities of methane production. Could the methane gas produced by wetlands have potential? In Rwanda there is methane produced in the lake beds of Lake Kivu that has potential to provide energy for a huge part of the energy poor nation. Check out this link –http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/23/world/fg-lake23
In this link http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/02/10/banana-methane-will-power-cars-in-australia/ There is talk about using methane from the fermenting of produce to power natural gas cars in Australia. Methane gas has the potential to becoming a leading energy resource in the near future.
Great links, nice finds. You really think that methane will become a leading source of energy?
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