Early Thursday morning we visited the Sao Joao landfill. It was a dreary day, with a constant drizzle of rain and temperatures at more or less 40 degrees Fahrenheit. We did we visit a landfill? Well, when the garbage in a landfill decomposes, the gas released contains methane. After collection and a cleaning process, about 50% of the total gas is recovered methane that can be processed and sent to the Sao Paulo grid. While the starting product (garbage) is readily available and always will be, not much power is generated from the methane gas.
Landfills in Brazil are more common than landfills in the USA as the composition of total waste is different. Brazil generally has more organic waste that is biodegradable and releases a fair amount of methane. On the other hand, waste in the USA is composed of more plastics and manmade materials that do not release as much methane.
 |
| Control panel for the entire landfill |
 |
"We've worked for 644 days without an accident. Our record is 365 days."
Wait, what? |
 |
| Where methane gas is burned if something goes wrong and it can't be captured. |
 |
| Trash Mountain. It was smelly. |
No comments:
Post a Comment