Federal First: Space Flight Center Uses Landfill Gas For Heat
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the first federal agency to directly use the landfill gas methane to produce energy at one of its facilities. The federal space agency is using this renewable energy source to heat buildings at the Goddard Space Flight Center, located in Greenbelt. The gas comes from the Sandy Hill Landfill owned by Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Two of the five boilers at Goddard were modified to run on landfill gas, heating 31 buildings at the center. Landfill gas provides all of the center’s heating needs 95 percent of the time, with natural gas serving as the back up.
By reducing their use of fossil fuels by substituting landfill gas, NASA will save taxpayers millions of dollars over the next 10 years. The switch to a cleaner fuel source will also prevent as much pollution annually as.
The Goddard Space Flight Center landfill gas project is the culmination of a public-private partnership between Prince George’s County, Waste Management, Toro Energy, NASA and EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program.
Currently, 340 landfills in the United States harness landfill gas for energy. If the greenhouse gas reductions from these projects were combined, the results would have the same annual climate change benefit as planting 17 million acres of forest, or eliminating the emissions from 12 million cars.
Provided by theEnvironmental News Service.