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Room to improve
About: Andrew Mourant is a freelance journalist whose areas of expertise include renewable energy, education and the rail industry. Feature article
Room to improve In Part II of Andrew Mourant’s ‘mini-series’ about global developments in the promising field of landfill gas site management, the author trains his sights on China and India.
T
WO GREAT countries — two enormous polluters. That frank assessment perhaps best describes China and India, at least from an industrial manufacturing standpoint. Both countries have vast populations, booming economies, and they produce mind-boggling quantities of waste. To that end, one might think that the potential for converting landfill gas to energy would seem to be enormous. The damaging impact of coal-fired power stations and urban smog has long plagued China. These are, perhaps, lower profile problems in India though nonetheless real. Yet Chinese efforts to tackle the ruinous impact of air pollution are also making the world take notice. It’s far ahead of its Asian neighbour in converting refuse tip methane gas into electricity.
14
March/April 2014 | Renewable Energy Focus
Online: renewableenergyfocus.com BCS secures contracts for large bioconversion systems in Australia and South Korea http://ow.ly2Er1Ab Wrtsil to produce biofuel for buses in Norway http://ow.ly2E2Ymp
Feature article
In China and India, the potential for converting landfill gas to energy would seem to be enormous. However, obstacles are hampering growth opportunities.
Given that the technology of extracting methane gas is uncomplicated, and that India has around 5,500 polluting major landfills, this would seem to be an opportunity lost. But many sites have been poorly controlled, their history unknown. Several locally run pilot methane gas to energy projects have failed to bring about any step-change. In China, with around 5,000 landfill sites, a lead has been taken by French environmental services company Veolia, a partner in China’s first landfill-gas-to-energy (LFG) plant, Guangzhou Guang Jia. Construction was completed in June 1999 with power generation from the gas extracted beginning just one month later. Veolia is involved in seven LFG to energy plants, including Shanghai Laogang, one of Asia’s largest, which started to produce electricity in July 2008. This was established by Shanghai Environment Group Co. Ltd. and
Bloom Country Limited (BCL). The latter is a Hong Kong entity wholly owned by Veolia, which designed, built and operates the site on a 25-year contract. Shanghai Laogang, with eleven sets of gas engines, produced almost 24,400 MWh of electricity in 2012 alone. Since its inception, the plant has treated around 58 million cubic meters of landfill gas, generating 73,000 MWh. This, by any standards, is large scale. How do things work when East meets West in such a way? Zhou Xiaohau, general manager for Veolia in China, is a seasoned operator and a veteran at dealing with bureaucracy. It can still be a problem, despite China’s spectacular economic transformation. “It was in 1998 that doors began opening,” he explained. “Before, everything had to be operated through local government; we needed to explain the advantages of the PPP (private-public partnership) model and bringing
in better technology. It was a very interesting and long road”. Veolia still works closely with municipal and central governments. The future, though, for major LFG to energy projects is far from assured in China. “We have very detailed plans to develop, but there are problems,” Zhou told REF. “One issue is that it’s difficult to find land for landfill.” This may come as a surprise in so populous a country, whose five-year plan includes a further drive towards pushing millions into already sprawling cities. But therein lies the problem – new sites are hard to find because of urbanisation and the distance of suitable land from residential areas. “The Chinese haven’t been focusing on landfill – if they can avoid it, they will,” Zhou explains. The five-year plan has a strong emphasis on incineration. Priorities are less about power generation and more about controlling poison and toxic emissions, Zhou adds. “Some
March/April 2014 | Renewable Energy Focus
15
Feature article
sites are a challenge – they produce more leachate where it’s humid, and you need to pump them out weekly or else the well won’t produce gas.” China has had successes with pollution control, notably its Nanjing Shui-Ge LFG project. The plant, generating power since 2002, and with capacity of more than 4,050 kW, is regarded as a model operation, the only one of its kind in China to be designated by UNDP and SEPA as a National Environmental Protection Demonstration Project. As a business proposition, LFG energy plans in China must stand on their merits – the price per KWh is the same as that produced by coal and most all other means. “We’re in competition with everybody,” Zhou stated. Last year Veoila produced 275,000 MW from its seven operations. The company is, however, unspecific about its next moves, declining to reveal its level of investment to date. On that issue, Zhou would only say: “We’re continuing to look at the Chinese market. There’s a lot of opportunity, but no big landfill sites.”
Eye on India The scope and ambition of Shanghai Laogong only emphasises how far India lags behind. Truth be told, landfill gas makes a negligible contribution to the Indian national grid. Yet the environmental case for capturing methane gas is overwhelming. In so vast and chaotic a country, the scale of the problem is hard to assess, observers say. However, scientists have done their best to work out implications for pollution and the worldwide greenhouse gas crisis. They’ve calculated that in 1997 India released around seven million tonnes of methane into the atmosphere, and that this could reach 39 million tonnes by 2047 under a ‘business-as-usual scenario’. In urban areas, most municipal solid waste (MSW) is deposited, unsorted, in uncontrolled open sites. The rest is dumped illegally or left to decompose either in streets and drains, or in unmanaged tips — around 50% is biodegradable, researchers say. With its high proportion of food scraps and India’s warm, wet climate,
16
March/April 2014 | Renewable Energy Focus
the rate of MSW decomposition is faster than in most landfills elsewhere. The rates of methane flow can be expected to peak shortly after a landfill is closed and decrease rapidly thereafter. This means only large sites can produce high yields for long enough to support a power generator. However, India seems incapable of building on the work it has done with LFG renewable energy pilots such as Okhla, a 16-hectare landfill owned by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) that opened in 1994 with the capacity for eight million tonnes of waste. When LFG extraction began at Okhla in March 2011, the site showed great promise – plenty of methane, with concentrations ranging from 27.7% -54.2%. It was hoped the operation might offer a template that could be adaptable across India. Scientists, modelling on their findings at Okhla, calculated there was enough organic matter in Indian landfills to generate 565,000 MW of power per year. Yet the project was decommissioned after only six months at MCD’s request because the corporation wanted to resume waste disposal at the exact spot on which the pilot was operating. A review into Okhla found that even though India had carried out two decades of research on LFG recovery, ‘the field is…immature when it comes to standards and common principles… in the context of a developing country.’ “Pilot demonstration projects and reviews of experiences from previous studies are essential for technocommercial viability,” the review went on to note. Such energy projects also need to work around environmental legislation, and whatever taxes and subsidies are available. It has emerged that far too little is known about Indian landfill sites. “There’s a lot of uncertainty in being able to estimate accurately the amount of organic waste at any particular open dump,” says Dr Suneel Pandey, Senior Fellow in earth science and climate change at India’s energy and resources institute, TERI. “There’s rarely any record of historical waste disposal available with local bodies here.”
In addition, Dr Pandey notes, waste at landfills is often put to fire as a means to reduce the volume disposed. “This is another source of uncertainty in estimating. Often the real yield [of methane gas] is much less than what’s expected theoretically.” This lack of knowledge was exposed during the ‘scientific closure’ of the 20–hectare Gorai dump near Mumbai, which opened in 1972 and shut in 2007. It had been receiving 1,200 tons of waste each day. The project entailed: covering the site with an impermeable liner and landscaping; controlling and collecting poisonous run-off; and capturing landfill gas. Gorai became the first dumpsite closure project in India to register under UNFCCC. But as scientists went about their work, two things became clear: First, the Mumbai Corporation’s (MCGM)’s claim that the dump contained 10 million tons of waste was wildly inaccurate – close examination showed it was nearer three million. Second, the site was failing to yield as much gas as anticipated. This was because MCGM broke its promise to ‘scientifically manage’ the site after closure by compacting the dumped rubbish and covering it with soil. It all presents a picture of LFG to energy projects struggling to take off in a country that offers little or no direction — poor site management and ignorance seem to have held everything back. “Industry in this country and abroad would be interested to explore harvesting LFG if there were better homework done by urban local bodies and better record-keeping on waste disposal practices,” Pandey told REF. “Any waste site reaching [the end of] its useful disposal life should be closed and LFG harvesting infrastructure put in place. We need policies and finances to ensure landfills are closed scientifically before any expression of interest is invited to harvest LFG.” The lessons seem quite clear, but the question remains: Is India capable of learning and acting upon them? Its past record is unpromising, yet the need to do has never been more compelling – and sooner rather than later.
Room to improve In Part II of Andrew Mourant’s ‘mini-series’ about global developments in the promising field of landfill gas site management, the author trains his sights on China and India.
T
WO GREAT countries — two enormous polluters. That frank assessment perhaps best describes China and India, at least from an industrial manufacturing standpoint. Both countries have vast populations, booming economies, and they produce mind-boggling quantities of waste. To that end, one might think that the potential for converting landfill gas to energy would seem to be enormous. The damaging impact of coal-fired power stations and urban smog has long plagued China. These are, perhaps, lower profile problems in India though nonetheless real. Yet Chinese efforts to tackle the ruinous impact of air pollution are also making the world take notice. It’s far ahead of its Asian neighbour in converting refuse tip methane gas into electricity.
14
March/April 2014 | Renewable Energy Focus
Online: renewableenergyfocus.com BCS secures contracts for large bioconversion systems in Australia and South Korea http://ow.ly2Er1Ab Wrtsil to produce biofuel for buses in Norway http://ow.ly2E2Ymp
Feature article
In China and India, the potential for converting landfill gas to energy would seem to be enormous. However, obstacles are hampering growth opportunities.
Given that the technology of extracting methane gas is uncomplicated, and that India has around 5,500 polluting major landfills, this would seem to be an opportunity lost. But many sites have been poorly controlled, their history unknown. Several locally run pilot methane gas to energy projects have failed to bring about any step-change. In China, with around 5,000 landfill sites, a lead has been taken by French environmental services company Veolia, a partner in China’s first landfill-gas-to-energy (LFG) plant, Guangzhou Guang Jia. Construction was completed in June 1999 with power generation from the gas extracted beginning just one month later. Veolia is involved in seven LFG to energy plants, including Shanghai Laogang, one of Asia’s largest, which started to produce electricity in July 2008. This was established by Shanghai Environment Group Co. Ltd. and
Bloom Country Limited (BCL). The latter is a Hong Kong entity wholly owned by Veolia, which designed, built and operates the site on a 25-year contract. Shanghai Laogang, with eleven sets of gas engines, produced almost 24,400 MWh of electricity in 2012 alone. Since its inception, the plant has treated around 58 million cubic meters of landfill gas, generating 73,000 MWh. This, by any standards, is large scale. How do things work when East meets West in such a way? Zhou Xiaohau, general manager for Veolia in China, is a seasoned operator and a veteran at dealing with bureaucracy. It can still be a problem, despite China’s spectacular economic transformation. “It was in 1998 that doors began opening,” he explained. “Before, everything had to be operated through local government; we needed to explain the advantages of the PPP (private-public partnership) model and bringing
in better technology. It was a very interesting and long road”. Veolia still works closely with municipal and central governments. The future, though, for major LFG to energy projects is far from assured in China. “We have very detailed plans to develop, but there are problems,” Zhou told REF. “One issue is that it’s difficult to find land for landfill.” This may come as a surprise in so populous a country, whose five-year plan includes a further drive towards pushing millions into already sprawling cities. But therein lies the problem – new sites are hard to find because of urbanisation and the distance of suitable land from residential areas. “The Chinese haven’t been focusing on landfill – if they can avoid it, they will,” Zhou explains. The five-year plan has a strong emphasis on incineration. Priorities are less about power generation and more about controlling poison and toxic emissions, Zhou adds. “Some
March/April 2014 | Renewable Energy Focus
15
Feature article
sites are a challenge – they produce more leachate where it’s humid, and you need to pump them out weekly or else the well won’t produce gas.” China has had successes with pollution control, notably its Nanjing Shui-Ge LFG project. The plant, generating power since 2002, and with capacity of more than 4,050 kW, is regarded as a model operation, the only one of its kind in China to be designated by UNDP and SEPA as a National Environmental Protection Demonstration Project. As a business proposition, LFG energy plans in China must stand on their merits – the price per KWh is the same as that produced by coal and most all other means. “We’re in competition with everybody,” Zhou stated. Last year Veoila produced 275,000 MW from its seven operations. The company is, however, unspecific about its next moves, declining to reveal its level of investment to date. On that issue, Zhou would only say: “We’re continuing to look at the Chinese market. There’s a lot of opportunity, but no big landfill sites.”
Eye on India The scope and ambition of Shanghai Laogong only emphasises how far India lags behind. Truth be told, landfill gas makes a negligible contribution to the Indian national grid. Yet the environmental case for capturing methane gas is overwhelming. In so vast and chaotic a country, the scale of the problem is hard to assess, observers say. However, scientists have done their best to work out implications for pollution and the worldwide greenhouse gas crisis. They’ve calculated that in 1997 India released around seven million tonnes of methane into the atmosphere, and that this could reach 39 million tonnes by 2047 under a ‘business-as-usual scenario’. In urban areas, most municipal solid waste (MSW) is deposited, unsorted, in uncontrolled open sites. The rest is dumped illegally or left to decompose either in streets and drains, or in unmanaged tips — around 50% is biodegradable, researchers say. With its high proportion of food scraps and India’s warm, wet climate,
16
March/April 2014 | Renewable Energy Focus
the rate of MSW decomposition is faster than in most landfills elsewhere. The rates of methane flow can be expected to peak shortly after a landfill is closed and decrease rapidly thereafter. This means only large sites can produce high yields for long enough to support a power generator. However, India seems incapable of building on the work it has done with LFG renewable energy pilots such as Okhla, a 16-hectare landfill owned by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) that opened in 1994 with the capacity for eight million tonnes of waste. When LFG extraction began at Okhla in March 2011, the site showed great promise – plenty of methane, with concentrations ranging from 27.7% -54.2%. It was hoped the operation might offer a template that could be adaptable across India. Scientists, modelling on their findings at Okhla, calculated there was enough organic matter in Indian landfills to generate 565,000 MW of power per year. Yet the project was decommissioned after only six months at MCD’s request because the corporation wanted to resume waste disposal at the exact spot on which the pilot was operating. A review into Okhla found that even though India had carried out two decades of research on LFG recovery, ‘the field is…immature when it comes to standards and common principles… in the context of a developing country.’ “Pilot demonstration projects and reviews of experiences from previous studies are essential for technocommercial viability,” the review went on to note. Such energy projects also need to work around environmental legislation, and whatever taxes and subsidies are available. It has emerged that far too little is known about Indian landfill sites. “There’s a lot of uncertainty in being able to estimate accurately the amount of organic waste at any particular open dump,” says Dr Suneel Pandey, Senior Fellow in earth science and climate change at India’s energy and resources institute, TERI. “There’s rarely any record of historical waste disposal available with local bodies here.”
In addition, Dr Pandey notes, waste at landfills is often put to fire as a means to reduce the volume disposed. “This is another source of uncertainty in estimating. Often the real yield [of methane gas] is much less than what’s expected theoretically.” This lack of knowledge was exposed during the ‘scientific closure’ of the 20–hectare Gorai dump near Mumbai, which opened in 1972 and shut in 2007. It had been receiving 1,200 tons of waste each day. The project entailed: covering the site with an impermeable liner and landscaping; controlling and collecting poisonous run-off; and capturing landfill gas. Gorai became the first dumpsite closure project in India to register under UNFCCC. But as scientists went about their work, two things became clear: First, the Mumbai Corporation’s (MCGM)’s claim that the dump contained 10 million tons of waste was wildly inaccurate – close examination showed it was nearer three million. Second, the site was failing to yield as much gas as anticipated. This was because MCGM broke its promise to ‘scientifically manage’ the site after closure by compacting the dumped rubbish and covering it with soil. It all presents a picture of LFG to energy projects struggling to take off in a country that offers little or no direction — poor site management and ignorance seem to have held everything back. “Industry in this country and abroad would be interested to explore harvesting LFG if there were better homework done by urban local bodies and better record-keeping on waste disposal practices,” Pandey told REF. “Any waste site reaching [the end of] its useful disposal life should be closed and LFG harvesting infrastructure put in place. We need policies and finances to ensure landfills are closed scientifically before any expression of interest is invited to harvest LFG.” The lessons seem quite clear, but the question remains: Is India capable of learning and acting upon them? Its past record is unpromising, yet the need to do has never been more compelling – and sooner rather than later.