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Biomethane Projects
EcoPort Landfill Gas Methane Energy Project, Freeport, IL
EcoEnergy has contracted with the City of Freeport, Illinois, to develop a landfill gas methane utilization project for the city’s closed landfill. EcoEnergy was selected in part because of the company’s experience in developing various commercial energy uses for landfill methane gas and other energy projects.
The EcoPort Landfill Gas Methane Energy Project will harvest methane gas from the landfill for purification and sale as an environmentally friendly energy source to local snack food manufacturer CJ Vitners. (Like the natural gas it replaces, the landfill methane gas will be piped directly into the plant’s boiler operations to power processing which does not come into direct contact with food products.)
Methane gas created by the breakdown of landfill matter will be "scrubbed" to remove moisture and any particulates, then processed and compressed before being sent via pipeline to the nearby Vitner plant. Vitners will use the gas, which will be available at a lower cost as compared to the price of natural gas, to fuel indirect heating sources within its boiler and fryer operations.
EcoEnergy will lease a small parcel adjacent to the landfill site from the city and will pay the city for the methane. EcoPort is being designed as a “turn-key” project, with EcoEnergy performing development, engineering, construction and project ownership. EcoEnergy is completing the gas purchase agreements, designing and installing the landfill gas collection system and gas processing/conditioning system. The community and its citizens will benefit from lease and gas payments as well as from the reduction of the potential for landfill gas to migrate into the area’s subsoils or create odors by escaping into the atmosphere.
EcoEnergy officials estimate that the EcoPort project will prevent the equivalent of approximately 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide from escaping into the atmosphere – the ecological equivalent of planting more than 5,800 acres of forest or reducing our nation’s oil imports by 50,000 barrels of oil each year.
For examples of other ways to utilize biomethane gas from landfills…
Generation of electricity
High-btu fuel
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