The World Bank has signed its first greenhouse gas reductions agreement in China to develop a landfill gas project. 

The Shuangkou Landfill Gas Project located in Tianjin Municipality will recover landfill gas from the Shuangkou landfill and utilize the recovered gas for electricity generation.

The landfill was the first modern sanitary landfill in Tianjin and receives an average of 800-1000 tons of household waste a day.

By the end of 2006, more than 1.6 million tons of household waste had been landfilled.

The project developer, Tianjin Clean Energy and Environmental Engineering Company Ltd (TCEE) will collect landfill gas, half of it is methane which has 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, with the other half made up of carbon dioxide and other gases.

It will generate electricity by installing a landfill gas collection system, an electricity generation system and a gas flaring system on site.

Under the agreement signed with the World Bank, TCEE will sell 635,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emission reductions to the Spanish Carbon Fund managed by the World Bank.

"Tianjin is the first landfill gas project the Bank has done in China and is a prototype of what could be," said Greg Browder, senior environmental engineer and task leader of the project. "There are 87 cities in China with a population of one million or more. The residents of these and other large cities discard significant quantities of waste that will emit methane in a disposal site. The potential for landfill gas projects like Tianjin is enormous."

The landfill gas project is expected to start by early 2008.

The gas will be collected in pipes from a series of wells where waste has been deposited.  The collected gas will be transported in pipes to a central facility where it will be burned to produce electricity for sale to the North China Power Grid.

"As a renewable energy project, the Tianjin Shuangkou Landfill Gas project will provide societal, economical and environmental benefits and result in a positive impact on global climate", said the head of Tianjin Clean Energy and Environmental Engineering Co., Ltd. "With its approval in China and with the emission reductions purchase agreement signed, the project is now on its way to being registered as a Clean Development Mechanism project."

Landfill gas is the fourth largest contributor to non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions.

Landfill gas recovery and use for energy can make an important contribution to reducing methane emissions.

(China Development Gateway July 6, 2007)