The Anheuser-Busch brewery in Houston will begin using landfill biogas as an alternative fuel source. The gas will be carried through a six-mile pipeline from the McCarty Road landfill to the Anheuser-Busch brewery to help generate steam energy for the brewery's power plant. More than 55 percent of the brewery's fuel demand will be supplied by biogas.
Landfill biogas, which is created when organic material in a municipal solid waste landfill decomposes, consists of about 50 percent methane.
"In addition to utilizing this alternative source of fuel, through active conservation efforts at our Houston brewery we've reduced our fuel usage by 15 percent and our electricity use by more than five percent in the last 18 months," said Richard Wohlfarth, general manager of Anheuser-Busch's Houston brewery.
The project, developed as part of a partnership with Ameresco that constructed and operates a biogas processing facility on the landfill's property, broke ground in March of 2008 and was completed in May of 2009. The McCarty Road Landfill gas project is one of 75 alternative energy projects at Republic Services' landfills nationwide.
