USA to get world’s largest landfill gas to LNG plant

The US$15 million plant is to be built at the Altamont landfill site near Livermore, in California. It will be a joint venture between German gas and engineering company Linde Group, and American company, Waste Management Inc.

Expected to begin operating in 2009, the plant will produce around 50,000 litres of liquid biogas (LNG) every day, which will be used as a fuel for Waste Management's 300 waste and recycling collection vehicles in California.

Linde is responsible for the engineering of the plant as well as the cleaning and subsequent liquefaction of the landfill gas. Waste Management is supplying the landfill gas, which comes from the natural decomposition of organic waste.

Arnold's fuel standard
The LNG produced will be a virtually zero-carbon transportation fuel and the project is seen as a significant step towards meeting Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS).

The LCFS requires fuel providers to ensure that the mix of fuel they sell into the Californian market meets a declining standard for greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020, the LCFS will produce a ten per cent reduction in the carbon content of all passenger vehicle fuels sold in California. This is expected to replace twenty per cent of the state’s automotive gasoline consumption with lower-carbon fuels; more than triple the size of the current renewable fuels market; and place more than seven million alternative fuel or hybrid vehicles on California's roads - twenty times more than the total today.

Clean up
Pat Murphy, president of Linde North America, said, “Linde and Waste Management are joining together to clean up our environment by capturing and reusing landfill gas for vehicle fuelling, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30,000 tonnes per year. Linde is using its expertise in designing and developing LNG plants around the world to create a clean and sustainable energy solution for the residents of California.”