Gasrec, BOC and SITA UK Begin Production of Liquid Biomethane for Vehicle Fuel
19 June 2008
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| Overview of the Gasrec process. Click to enlarge. |
Gasrec, the UK’s first commercial producer of liquid biomethane fuel; BOC, a member of the global gases and engineering Linde Group; and SITA UK, one of the UK’s leading recycling and waste management companies, have begun production of liquid biomethane (LBM) fuel from the Gasrec plant at SITA UK’s Albury landfill site in Surrey, UK.
The Albury plant will produce approximately 5,000 tonnes of LBM per year, sufficient to fuel up to 150 heavy-duty or up to 500 light-duty vehicles, depending on their fuel source (i.e. dedicated gas or dual fuel), mileage, load and duty.
Project life for the Albury landfill LBM work is 15 years. Organic degradation produces around 2,200 m3/hour of landfill gas (LFG), about 50% of which is methane (CH4) with the balance being nitrogen and CO2. The Gasrec technology will recover more than 85% of the methane contained in the raw LFG.
The Gasrec process cleans the landfill gas of all impurities before methane is separated and liquefied to create LBM for vehicle fuel. The liquefaction technology for landfill applications is provided under an exclusive UK agreement with BOC’s parent, The Linde Group. BOC provides plant operation and maintenance services as well as risk management and engineering expertise.
LBM not only offers a renewable alternative to fossil fuels, but also burns more cleanly and quietly than diesel, with a 90% reduction in PM10 particulate, a 60% reduction in NOx, a 50% reduction in SO2 and a 30% reduction in noise.
The use of the LBM as a fuel substitute for fossil diesel or gasoline will result in carbon dioxide savings in the region of 70% on a full lifecycle basis, according to Gasrec. All vehicles that can operate on CNG (compressed natural gas) or LNG (liquefied natural gas) can run on LBM, however LBM offers a reduction in CO2 emissions which is twice that of natural gas, according to the JEC2006 and CONCAWE lifecycle studies.
The initial target for the use of LBM is commercial vehicles operating in the haulage and waste management sectors.
Gasrec has signed an agreement with the Hardstaff Group, one of the largest LNG bulk transporters in the UK, to manage transport logistics and fuel transportation from Albury. The haulage trucks use Hardstaff’s dual fuel system running entirely on LBM.
We have produced electricity from landfill gas for many years but we believe there is a big future for generating fuel from waste. We have another waste-to-fuel project in Hong Kong and have been keen to see this type of technology take off in the UK. We are keen to expand our relationship with Gasrec to cover other types of waste recovery facilities.
—Stuart Hayward-Higham, New Markets Business Development Manager at SITA UK
The official launch of the Albury plant will take place on 24 June.
(A hat-tip to John!)
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Liquid methane is -260F. Why expend all that energy when CNG vehicle are so common.
Posted by: DS | 19 June 2008 at 07:06 AM
fuel from waste
The ideal fuel to run garbage trucks on, and it sounds like just enough for the local fleet.
Posted by: John Taylor | 19 June 2008 at 07:14 AM
Liquid methane is -260F. Why expend all that energy when CNG vehicle are so common.If I had to guess, I'd say it's that the marginal cost of liquefaction may not being very high if you also have to separate the CO2 and nitrogen (cooling lets you do both), or perhaps that the landfills don't have a pipeline, so converting the methane to a cryogenic liquid is how they transport it.
Posted by: Paul F. Dietz | 19 June 2008 at 07:28 AM
What is the going rate for CO2 and Nitrogen? Obviously, waste is money these days, but seriously, what are the numbers? Could municipal solid waste be the next thing after oil?
Posted by: The Scoot | 19 June 2008 at 07:31 AM
Posted by: Reality Czech | 19 June 2008 at 12:04 PM
This sounds like a great idea. They keep talking about how Honalulu Hawaii has ran out of landfill area and they are going to barge all the garbage to oregon up the the columbia to a landfill in the gorge. With all that effort why dont they built a ship that can accept the garbage and turn it into liquid fuels using this process or a FT process. Heck they could probably place the ship outside of US waters near Hawaii and avoid most US pollution red tape. They could then offload all the bio-crude to other boats for transport to refineries to finish the job.
Posted by: ???? | 19 June 2008 at 01:35 PM
I was going o ask the same question about Hydrogen.
but need only point out that liquid h is -252c compared to liquid methane -161c.
Otherwise good comment.
Posted by: arnold | 19 June 2008 at 02:54 PM
We definitely need more of this as the methane otherwise released unburnt is a greenhouse gas 22* co2 Emissions from the burning of methane will be some number well below 1*.
And we'll always need refuse to be removed.
8s
Posted by: arnold | 19 June 2008 at 02:59 PM
Turning waste into natural gas (methane) for vehicles can cities is definitely a good idea.
Posted by: Ben | 20 June 2008 at 09:21 AM