Given the ideal circumstances, landfills offer a very large volume of biogas that can be converted to Renewable Natural Gas. Landfills are typically very large, and when they have been designed to efficiently retrieve the generated biogas from the landfill, it is usually a very large volume, in excess of 1000-2000 SCFM. This amount of biogas can be very attractive for re-injection into a pipeline, but the biogas itself demands a proactive approach to prepare it for such an end use.

Raw biogas from landfills rarely have more than 50% methane in the mix, and also include moisture at the saturation point, as well as siloxanes and Hydrogen Sulfide. Add to this the complication of introducing Nitrogen and oxygen to the biogas, due to the vacuum methods of retrieving the biogas from the landfill, and you have a biogas mixture that is problematic at the very least.

Expert consultants who have many years of experience in this are reside at Lee Enterprises, Inc, and can guide the investor through the qualification process, to ascertain the ROI for the site. Many times, just taking the biogas to a state that is acceptable to an engine is enough, so the gas doesn’t need to be flared.

The next level of sophistication would be to remove the carbon dioxide, and any residual inert gases, such as nitrogen. These steps require analysis of the product gas to measure the cost benefit of taking it to the next level. Each site is unique, and each site in itself will change over its lifetime.

Contact: Lowell E Howard, PE
CEO - WC Energy Systems
Phone: 425-260-3354