At the Saskatoon Landfill, the city’s trash is being transformed into treasure. Saskatoon Light and Power is in the process of drilling the last of 29 wells in the Landfill Gas to Energy project.
Through the use of greenhouse gases, trash collected at the landfill will be able to provide power to 2600 homes across the city. Gases created by the waste are drawn out through the wells and then piped into a power generation facility just west of the landfill site.
Kevin Hudson is the sustainable electricity manager for the city. “As the organic material in the waste decomposes it releases a gas that's about 50 per cent methane and the rest is carbon dioxide and nitrogen and that type of thing. So up until now that gas has just been escaping up into the atmosphere."
Once the gas wells are drilled into the waste, it will connect with piping underground, where vacuum compressors will suck up the gas so it can be turned into energy.
“We're generating 1.6 megawatts of electricity using the landfill gas, combusting it in internal combustion engines, and then we're capturing waste heat off those engines from the jacket water and the exhaust, and we're using that in another project with SaskEnergy to generate another megawatt of electricity,” says Hudson.
The project is expected to remove over 46,000 tonnes of greenhouse gasses each year, comparable to removing over 9000 cars from the road.
Construction on the project will continue for the next year, with power production beginning next summer.
