Landfill Gas Fuels Political Battle Over Future of Gas Utilities
I just read an interesting article from the Seattle Times that discussed how “landfill gas” – i.e., converting landfill methane into renewable natural gas – is becoming a political football in Washington state as well as other parts of the US. And it all boils down to climate change and how natural gas utilities fit into this framework.
Can Landfill Gas Lower the Carbon Footprint of Buildings?
The Seattle Times article focused on a single landfill in Washington state that can produce enough pipeline-quality natural gas to fuel 19,000 homes. It converts millions of pounds of waste into natural gas every day via a $40 million on-site processing plant.
Depending on how many other landfills could be utilized to produce landfill gas, this fuel source could replace up to 5% of Washington’s total natural gas consumption. At the moment, it only makes up about 1.3% of the state’s total consumption.
In Washington, the carbon footprint of buildings accounts for nearly a quarter of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, and renewable natural gas is viewed as a key strategy to help reduce this percentage. This viewpoint is being trumpeted by government officials who are desperate to look like leaders in the race to deploy innovative solutions to the climate change problem, and also by gas utilities attempting to fend off legislative efforts to foster increased mandates around the electrification of buildings.
Yet, there are plenty of people on the other side that do not believe landfill methane will move the needle because converting a building from natural gas heat to electric heat is cheaper than converting it to carbon-free forms of gas.
For an extremely detailed breakdown of all of the related issues, I encourage you to check out the Seattle Times article. The bottom line is that landfill gas is serving as a microcosm of various political and utility arguments around how exactly to combat climate change. It may not be part of the broad solution, but it seems it can at least be useful as a starting point to discuss the broader issues at hand.
