1st March Deadline for CIWM / Geotech Award Submissions

For the best proposal for a paper entitled: The Future Roles of Landfill Gas and Biogas, the CIWM / Geotech Award carries a bursary of £1500. The entry deadline: 1st March 2011. The award is open to all and the winner will present their paper at the CIWM Professional Awards Ceremony in October 2011. Application form and details from www.cwim.co.uk

The 2010 winner Russell Harwood, presented his paper on 20th October 2010.
His presentation can be viewed at: YouTube :  and his paper can be downloaded HERE:

"Biomethane has big potential," says Russell Harwood.
In his submission Harwood held that biomethane can provide over one sixth of all UK residential heat by 2020 and vehicle fuel. Rapid development of Biomethane to Grid is necessary and for carbon offsetting, biomethane vehicle fuel presents the best of all potential biogas uses. It can meet the required increase in renewable electricity, heat and fuel production to achieve the 15 percent renewable energy target set by the European Union for 2020. However, UK regulatory and financial barriers need to be overcome and the UK can learn from substantial progress made in Sweden, Germany and Denmark.

Harwood considers that landfill gas combustion using spark ignition engines will continue to play a key role in the renewable energy mix up to 2020. In the future, he suggests, microturbines can succeed spark ignition engines, at landfills with low methane gas concentrations, to extend gas extraction lifetime. According to Harwood, generating hydrogen from landfill gas and biogas for direct use in fuel cells is still commercially undeveloped. However he says it is expected to become more commercially viable within the next decade.

Harwood’s research adopted an holistic approach to review the current and future trends in the production and utilisation of landfill gas and biogas. He placed particular emphasis on developing innovative technologies, their progress in selected European nations and the incentives and barriers to their adoption in the UK.

Russell Harwood observed that waste management legislation and policy of the 21st Century seek sustainable resource recovery. Essential to this is increasing anaerobic digestion infrastructure to produce biogas and improving landfill gas extraction efficiency to meet energy targets and sustainability goals of 2020. The Renewable Energy Strategy 2009 states that bioenergy including landfill gas and biogas could contribute up to 22 percent of this target as well as biogas contributing to the 12 percent renewable heat requirement. There is a need to decarbonise the transport sector and biofuel consumption needs to increase to 5 percent by 2014. He cites examples in other EU countries, especially Sweden, where progress with biomethane in transport is well ahead of UK.
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