Calling for more stringent limits on methane emissions, Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises has provided formal comments to the EPA’s proposed emissions rules for municipal solid waste landfills.
Methane, generated in landfills by the decomposition of organic waste, is 85 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Landfills are responsible for 18 percent of manmade methane emissions in the US, according to the EPA.
Reducing these methane emissions is a key piece of the Obama administration’s Climate Action Plan announced in 2013.
B&W’s management is concerned that the proposed rule doesn’t secure the level of methane reduction that could be achieved through encouraging recycling, the diversion of organic waste from landfills and the deployment of waste-to-energy power generation technology for the production of renewable energy, suitable to support sustainable base-loaded power.
B&W has installed more than 500 waste-to-energy and biomass units worldwide since the 1970s.
“B&W also recommends that the EPA use the 20-year global warming potential of methane as established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Fifth Assessment Report in the final rule,” said E. James Ferland, chairman and CEO of B&W.
B&W designed and manufactured the steam generation system and environmental control equipment for the newest waste-to-energy plant in the US, the Palm Beach Renewable Energy Facility No. 2 in West Palm Beach, Florida.
