A major upgrade to the methane gas-capture facility at Canberra's main tip is promising a win-win for the environment, and power grid. More than a third of ACT household rubbish is food waste which goes to landfill and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.
Category
đź“ş
TVTranscript
00:00 Powering ahead with a plan to turn more of Canberra's trash into treasure.
00:07 We've been working with LDI now for some time since 2019 when we signed a 15 year contract
00:13 to capture the gas coming off the Mugga Lane landfill and turn it into electricity.
00:19 Methane, which is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, is produced
00:26 when organic material like food scraps and timber break down without oxygen.
00:31 The LGI system sucks some of that gas at the Mugga Lane site into pipes embedded in the
00:36 landfill and carries it to generators where it's converted into electricity.
00:40 But the amount of gas recovered is more than the four original generators could manage,
00:45 so the surplus is burned off as less harmful carbon dioxide.
00:49 Since 2020 when we commenced operations down there we've been able to more than double
00:54 the biogas that we recover from the facility.
00:56 That's 89 million cubic metres of biogas captured and 100 gigawatt hours of renewable energy
01:03 generated - more enough to power around 5,700 homes a year.
01:08 Now LGI has promised at least $13 million worth of upgrades, adding two more generators,
01:14 12 megawatts of battery storage and expanding the connection to the grid.
01:18 We can now power around 10,800 homes and generate 50,000 megawatt hours of electricity every
01:26 year.
01:27 The government says it's still committed to stopping organic waste going to landfill in
01:30 the first place, but that's not a complete solution.
01:34 The organic material that's currently in the landfill will likely continue to produce methane
01:39 for decades to come.
01:41 The expansion's due to be finished by the end of 2025.
01:44 [BLANK_AUDIO]