Good business with landfill gas in Brazil

Together with our friends from University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, we visited today the old landfill of Sao Paulo named "Bandeirantes". This landfill received 50 million tons wastes in 1979-2007, and converted a valley to a hill with 150 m height of the wastes. The landfill is now closed to new wastes and covered. A company named "Biogas" collect the landfill gas via 300 wells and convert them to electricity via engines. They had about 14000 m3/h gas with about 49% methane, which is now reduced to about 6000 m3/h. They sells 10 MW electricity now. In addition, the company is registered to CDM to sell also the carbon emission credits, which was 2000 tons/day in 2007 and 700 tons/day now. The price of each ton equivalent CO2 saving is about 8-10 Euro. The company says its 50 million USD investment was paid back in 2 years. Good investment for both the companies involved and also the environment!


(Bandeirantes landfill in Sao Paulo, Brazil with 1.2 km2 and 150 m height of the waste. The wells for gas collection are visible in the photo)