Last week I posted a story about Dell’s Headquarters taking advantage of a new technology created by Waste Management that collects methane and carbon dioxide produced at landfill sites and uses it to fuel generators (essentially being renewable energy). Today, Waste Management began constructing its second landfill gas-to-energy facility in Petrolia, Ontario. GreenBiz reports that this is the second of 60 new renewable energy plants to be created by 2012.
The gas collection process doesn’t seem like a traditional Waste Management business, but it is beneficial to the environment because it reduces the amount of non-renewable resources that we need to power our homes and cities. Where we would normally rely on coal or oil, the methane gases are being created by decomposing garbage “naturally” and are putting something bad to good use.
The power produced at these stations is plugged into Ontario’s grid, and has already produced enough energy to power one million homes and, with the amount of garbage our cities are producing these days, expect it to jump to millions more.
