Landfill turned into a power plant in US

Bannock County in Idaho, US, is close to turning its landfill into a power plant, according to Local News8.

Bannock County Commissioner Karl E. Anderson told the news wire that the waste site could be hidden gold in terms of its energy resources, with ample supplies of methane gas ready to be exploited at the site.

Microbes and bugs eat away at waste deep within landfill sites, which generates huge amounts of flammable gas. This can be converted into electricity by using technology that captures the gas, runs it through a generator to turn it into a sellable resource.

Project engineer Stephen Freiburger told Local News8: "Engineers are about the efficiency, using the system to the ultimate. But it'll be a good payback for the county.”

The start-up costs for such a project quite significant, but once those costs have been met, the landfill site could produce USD$1 million a year in energy. The initial start-up money has been generated from fees people pay to use the landfill, and most of the engineers are confident that the site will start making the costs back quickly.

Posted by Joseph Hutton