By Miranda Lipton for Reasons to be Cheerful.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Across the United States, landfills are accumulating trash faster than materials can decompose. In the nearly 2,000 landfills in the US, food waste contributes over 50 percent of fugitive methane emissions from municipal solid waste landfills, those invisible plumes of potent greenhouse gas emissions that seep out of landfills and into the atmosphere.

Landfills rank as the third-largest human-generated source of methane emissions in the US, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While diverting trash altogether would be the preferred outcome for pollution reduction, about 500 landfills across the country have turned to a novel way of combating pollution from the waste that is ending up in landfills: capturing the gas emitted from organic materials and transforming it into electricity.

"Methane is already in our environment today. You either use it or lose it," says Mike Bakas, alluding to the methane that is wasted if it's not captured. Bakas leads all landfill projects and renewable natural gas business at Ameresco, a company that designs, builds and operates renewable energy plants for landfills around the US.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, about 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping atmospheric heat. Capturing it removes the gas's ability to stimulate the greenhouse effect that comes with its infiltration into our atmosphere.

Landfills that utilize Landfill Gas-to-Energy (LFGTE) systems, which allow for the conversion of methane to energy, are equipped with infrastructure designed to collect the gas, often encased with a layer of clay or synthetic membrane to prevent gas from escaping into the atmosphere. Once collected, the methane can be utilized in one of a few ways, as electricity to use on-site or feed into the local power grid, or as natural gas.

The amount of energy generated through LFGTE projects varies widely depending on the size and age of the landfill, the composition of waste and the efficiency of the gas collection system.

One massive landfill that spans 629 acres in Virginia produces enough landfill gas (LFG) to create 70,000 megawatt hours of energy each year - that's enough to power about 6,700 homes for a year, based on the average US household's annual electricity consumption.

While most landfills using LFGTE are actively collecting waste, not all of them are. "We've got a landfill that's been shut down for about 10 years and we still have another 10 to 20 years of gas in it," says Bakas.

Puente Hills in California is the largest LFGTE program in the country, producing enough energy to power about 70,000 homes. Before the Puente Hills landfill closed in 2013, it was the largest landfill in the US, spanning 700 acres and reaching a whopping height of 500 feet above ground level.

These types of projects first came on the scene in the mid-1970s, and experienced a big rise in popularity in the '90s - largely due to the fact that, in 1994, the EPA began encouraging landfill operators to develop LFGTE projects through its Landfill Methane Outreach Program.

So why isn't every landfill owner taking advantage of its latent treasure trove of energy? Funding, mostly.

According to Bakas, LFGTE systems can cost between $10 million and $100 million to implement.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided tax deductions for landfills to install these systems, but there are still limitations that prohibit smaller landfills from being able to finance LFGTE. Specifically, the IRA didn't explicitly permit the use of Investment Tax Credits (ITC) for LFGTE projects, something Bakas says the industry is pushing for, as it would go a long way in helping smaller landfill projects that wouldn't otherwise be economically feasible.

There are also caveats embedded among the IRA's tax offerings that restrict landfills from receiving any of these benefits unless its owner owns both the landfill collection system and the energy processing plant, which, according to Bakas, is often not the case.

"So we need the treasury to come out and say, you can own either one or both, which would free us up to invest money in the equipment we need to do it," says Bakas.

And supporting these projects isn't just good for our air quality and atmosphere, but potentially for our pockets too. The dollars put into building these systems can be returned through the sale of electricity. And in some regions, landfill gas projects can generate renewable energy credits, which can be sold to utilities needing to meet renewable energy standards, providing an additional revenue stream.

But these projects aren't always profitable, and some may not have the capacity to ever be.

"To the extent that the site is economic, which I don't think it's a guarantee that it is, operators would probably look at how much [energy] can we produce ... and how close are we to where the energy can be used?" says Daniel Bresette, president of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

Bresette says that if a plant is processing landfill gas for electricity, as opposed to other types of energy, the plant may be able to do so with existing equipment, and with less concern for where the landfill is located. This is because the electricity can be fed directly into the energy grid, rather than needing to be transferred off-site to be processed.

The EPA estimates that a project that requires the installation of a new capture system would cost about $8.5 million to install and maintain, and would cost about another $3.5 million over the course of its 15-year lifespan. That number would drop dramatically for a project that doesn't require the support of a supplemental capture facility to process the LFG. It would also drop if tax credits, carbon credits or on-site electricity are utilized.

Landfills of a certain size are required by the Clean Air Act to install and operate gas collection systems. For those that don't meet sizing requirements, the industry is pushing for more government support.

"If the treasury confirms that we can use the ITC tax credits under the IRA towards these projects, then those smaller projects that were not economic might very well become economic," says Bakas.


Miranda Lipton wrote this article for Reasons to be Cheerful.


get more stories like this via email

New York lawmakers are focusing on electrifying municipal buildings.

Buildings statewide make up 32% of New York's greenhouse gas emissions and experts said electrifying them would lower heating and cooling costs, as well as reducing emissions. Inflation Reduction Act funds are available for municipalities to convert public buildings to use electricity.

Marian Brown, elected official fellow for Elected Officials to Protect America, said there is one challenge worrying elected leaders.

"One of the biggest challenges right now, and we were hearing this from folks, is uncertainty over the durability of Inflation Reduction Act funding, the IRA, with a new federal administration that's already signaling that it's not supportive of clean energy technologies," Brown explained.

President-elect Donald Trump has said he will repeal the Inflation Reduction Act but it comes with significant trade-offs. Research shows it could terminate many manufacturing jobs and cost America a chance at energy independence. Reports find conservative states are seeing the greatest benefits from Inflation Reduction Act investments.

The 2023 All-Electric Buildings Act will help get more buildings electrified by banning fossil-fuel systems in new buildings. All-electric cooking and heating will be required for new buildings under seven stories by 2026 and by 2029 for taller buildings.

Dominic Frongillo, cofounder and executive director of Elected Officials to Protect America, said the legislation comes with many benefits.

"We need to make sure we have the cleanest, most efficient, most modern technology that can protect the public health and improve indoor air quality, and make sure that we're keeping our dollars locally in our communities and our pockets," Frongillo outlined. "We need to build on that policy that New York State has passed."

The state's Building Code Council is deciding whether to include the All-Electric Buildings Act in its 2025 code update. Another bill establishing the Green Affordable Pre-Electrification Fund could help with the effort. It would allocate funds for buildings deemed unfit for weatherization and electrification, removing a major barrier to existing programs.

After years of double-digit rate hikes on electricity bills, some relief might be in sight.

Oregon Citizens' Utility Board, or CUB, has proposed a 7% to 10% yearly limit on rate increases for Pacific Gas & Electric and Pacific Power.

It is up to the Oregon Public Utility Commission to approve the proposal, and it will be making a decision this week.

Bob Jenks - CUB's executive director - said customers are struggling to absorb the 40% or 50% rate hikes from the last few years, and that something needs to be done to rein in this trend.

"We're concerned that this isn't going to stop," said Jenks. "This is in the interest of utilities to keep raising rates like this as long as they can."

Last winter's ice storm led to record power shutoffs for Oregon households, due to lack of payment of their utility bills.

If the PUC decides to adopt the cap, than PG&E's planned 10.9% increase and Pacific Power's planned 14.9% increase for January would need to be lowered.

Jenks said the system favors large companies, which pay much lower rates than households.

While industries need less infrastructure due to proximity to power supplies, he noted that new data centers are driving the need to grow the grid.

Yet, residential rates are rising more than three times faster than industrial rates.

"We think that residential customers and small-business customers are being asked to subsidize the big server farms," said Jenks, "the big data centers, like Amazon and Meta."

The Portland suburb of Hillsboro is newly home to many power-hungry data centers.

Jenks said PG&E's recent numbers show the centers use more electricity than all the residents in Washington County combined, and those numbers are expected to keep growing.

Jenks said CUB's proposal requires the PUC to mitigate rate increases that are higher than 10%.

They can do that by deferring part of the increase to the following year, or by setting the rate to the lowest level legally allowed that would still be profitable for the utility.

"Needless to say," said Jenks, "the utilities don't agree. "





get more stories like this via email

The power grid will need to be dramatically upgraded and expanded in the coming years to handle the transition to renewable energy - and two new reports look at the impact on wildlife, both on and off-shore.

The placement of large onshore power grids can greatly affect migratory species such as mule deer, elk, and sage grouse.

Veronica Ung-Kono is a clean-energy policy transmission specialist and staff attorney with the National Wildlife Federation.

"Proactively planning transmission development helps to strike a balance," said Ung-Kono, "that can help wildlife have their needs met while also helping people have access to low-cost and clean energy."

Ung-Kono said more research is needed because there's still a lot we don't know about the implications for wildlife as more transmission lines crisscross the landscape.

A second report on offshore wind farms recommends buffer zones around sensitive coral habitat.

It also says cables for windmills fixed to the ocean floor must be shielded and buried to reduce impacts from electromagnetic fields.

Co-author Shayna Steingard - an offshore wind senior policy specialist with the National Wildlife Federation - said if it's done right, the clean-energy transition will preserve habitat, and slow ocean warming and sea-level rise linked to climate change.

"I think climate change presents an existential threat to all species, particularly ocean species," said Steingard. "The threats from offshore wind development pale in comparison to the threat from not addressing climate change. There is no climate solution without offshore wind."

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to kill offshore wind development. So far, site surveys have been approved for the five wind farms planned off the California coast, but they still face years of permitting and environmental review.