BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
RAIFORD — New River Regional Landfill is still trucking natural gas to a nearby People’s Gas pipeline, but the production facility at the landfill will soon be transmitting it directly into the pipeline.
The New River Solid Waste Association in partnership with OPAL Fuels has established the first landfill gas-to-energy project in the state, and so far Executive Director Perry Kent things are going well.
The transmission line has been laid, connected and tested, Kent told board members from Baker, Bradford and Union counties last week. The project could be completed by the end of January.
Until then, the “virtual pipeline” of trucks will continue to transport the gas from the landfill at all hours of the day and night. Kent is looking forward to the end of that.
Because the sale of the renewable natural gas is a revenue generating project, the executive director said he would have a revenue report ready at the next board meeting. He’s predicting they could exceed their estimates.
Kent said the future of the project includes building a vehicle fueling station at the front of the landfill for use by trucks, including garbage trucks coming from Alachua County.
Prior to the natural gas project, the landfill had to collect and burn off the greenhouse gases emitted by decomposing organic waste to comply with environmental air standards. An onsite refinery now cleans up the gas for use as fuel. OPAL Fuels and the landfill association can profit from the fuel while offering the low carbon renewable gas as a solution to combat climate change.
The project is gaining attention as the state’s first renewable natural gas project at a landfill and New River as the first landfill to inject fuel into the Florida Gas Pipeline.
The landfill gas facility has the ability to produce 5 million GGE per year, with a GGE being the alternative fuel equivalent of 1 gallon of gasoline. According to OPAL, this renewable gas, when used to displace diesel, will avoid greenhouse emission equivalent 380 heavy duty trucks.
The refining process removes approximately 95% of carbon dioxide, 98% of sulfur oxide, and 90% of nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide.
OPAL made these announcements now that the project is at the end or its “ramp-up period.”
