Municipal solid waste landfills as geothermal heat sources

Coccia, Charles James Russell; Gupta, Ranjiv; Morris, Jeremy Wade; McCartney, John S.

doi:10.1016/j.rser.2012.07.028

Cited by 47 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The reason to the elevated temperatures can be explained by the oxidation of CH 4 and compost respiration (which both are exothermic reactions) in combination with heat transport from below (temperatures in the interior of the landfill have not been measured but is expected to be much higher than normal soil temperatures (Coccia et al, 2013)). The observed gradually decreasing temperature difference in all three depths of the CH 4 oxidation layer is probably due to a lower heat generation from the continuously maturing compost during the ten month 13 period.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigation of methane emissions in a pilot-scale biocover system at the AV Miljø Landfill, Denmark: 1. System design and gas distribution

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Greenhouse gas mitigation at landfills by methane oxidation in engineered biocover systems is believed to be a cost effective technology, but so far a full quantitative evaluation of the efficiency of the technology in full scale has only been carried out in a few cases. A third generation semi-passive biocover system was constructed at the AV Miljø Landfill, Denmark. The biocover system was fed by landfill gas pumped out of three leachate collection wells. An innovative gas distribution system was used to overcome the commonly observed surface emission hot spot areas resulting from an uneven gas distribution to the active methane oxidation layer, leading to areas with methane overloading. Performed screening of methane and carbon dioxide surface concentrations, as well as flux measurement using a flux chamber at the surface of the biocover, showed homogenous distributions indicating an even gas distribution. This was supported by results from a tracer gas test where the compound HFC-134a was added to the gas inlet over an adequately long time period to obtain tracer gas stationarity in the whole biocover system. Studies of the tracer gas movement within the biocover system showed a very even gas distribution in gas probes installed in the gas distribution layer. Also the flux of tracer gas out of the biocover surface, as measured by flux chamber technique, showed a spatially even distribution. Installed probes logging the temperature and moisture content of the methane oxidation layer at different depths showed elevated temperatures in the layer with temperature differences to the ambient temperature in the range of 25-50°C at the deepest measuring point due to the microbial processes occurring in the layer. The moisture measurements showed that infiltrating precipitation was efficiently drained away from the methane oxidation layer.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigation of methane emissions in a pilot-scale biocover system at the AV Miljø Landfill, Denmark: 1. System design and gas distribution

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Th is relationship also holds at other non-California sites ( Figure S2 ). Since landfi ll covers are designed to limit precipitation/infi ltration entry with designated regulatory cover designs ( Coccia et al, 2013 ;Hanson et al, 2010 ), this also provides thermal insulation to preserve the self-heating eff ect of the anaerobic microbial decomposition reactions.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

From California dreaming to California data: Challenging historic models for landfill CH4 emissions

Spokas

Bogner

Corcoran

et al. 2015

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Improved quantifi cation of diverse CH 4 sources at the urban scale is needed to guide local GHG mitigation strategies in the Anthropocene. Herein, we focus on landfi ll CH 4 emissions in California, challenging the current IPCC methodology which focuses on a climate dependency for landfi ll CH 4 generation (methanogen-esis), but does not explicitly consider climate or soil dependencies for emissions. Relying on a comprehensive California landfi ll database, a fi eld-validated process-based model for landfi ll CH 4 emissions (CALMIM), and select fi eld measurements at 10 California sites with a variety of methods, we support the contrary position: Limited climate dependency for methanogenesis, but strong climate dependency for landfi ll CH 4 emissions. Contrary to the historic IPCC empirical model for methanogenesis with kinetic constants related to climate, we demonstrate a simpler and more robust linear empirical relationship (r 2 = 0.85; n=128) between waste mass and landfi ll biogas recovery [126 × 10-6 Nm 3 CH 4 hr-1 Mg waste-1 ]. More interestingly, there are no statistically signifi cant relationships with climate, site age, or status (open/closed) for landfi ll biogas recovery. Th e current IPCC methodology does not consider soil or climate drivers for gaseous transport or seasonal methanotrophy in diff erent cover soils. On the other hand, we illustrate strong climate and soil dependencies for landfi ll emissions-e.g., average intermediate cover emissions below 20 g CH 4 m-2 d-1 when the site's mean annual precipitation is >500 mm y-1. Th ereby, for the California landfi ll CH 4 inventory, the highest-emitting sites shift from landfi lls containing the largest mass of waste to sites dominated by intermediate cover types having a reduced rate of soil CH 4 oxidation during the annual cycle. Th ese diff erences have profound implications for developing more realistic, science-based urban and regional scale GHG inventories for landfi ll CH 4 while reducing uncertainties for this important anthropogenic source.

show abstract

“…The installation of GSHPs is generally forbidden in landfills and contaminated sites because of the potential risk of triggering the dispersion of pollutants into groundwater. However, GSHPs can positively interact with landfills and remediation activities, for example, with Pump & Treat [59] or former mine dewatering systems [60], exploiting the heat generated by the degradation of waste in municipal solid waste landfills [61], or fostering the natural attenuation of contaminants [28,32,33].…”

Section: Potential Interferences With Specific (Hydro)geological Condmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interaction with groundwater contamination [28,32,33,[59][60][61] Hardness and mineral content of groundwater [39][40][41] Intermediate exchanger above 12 • F [39]. Use threshold values from the work of [41] for GWHPs.…”

Section: Impacts Of Drillingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment and Minimization of Potential Environmental Impacts of Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) Systems

Casasso

Sethi

2019

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) gained increasing interest owing to benefits such as low heating and cooling costs, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and no pollutant emissions on site. However, GSHPs may have various possible interactions with underground and groundwater, which, despite the extremely rare occurrence of relevant damages, has raised concerns on their sustainability. Possible criticalities for their installation are (hydro)geological features (artesian aquifers, swelling or soluble layers, landslide-prone areas), human activities (mines, quarries, landfills, contaminated sites), and groundwater quality. Thermal alterations due to the operation of GSHPs may have an impact on groundwater chemistry and on the efficiency of neighboring installations. So far, scientific studies excluded appraisable geochemical alterations within typical ranges of GSHPs (±6 K on the initial groundwater temperature); such alterations, however, may occur for aquifer thermal energy storage over 40 • C. Thermal interferences among neighboring installations may be severe in urban areas with a high plant density, thus highlighting the need for their proper management. These issues are presented here and framed from a groundwater quality protection perspective, providing the basis for a discussion on critical aspects to be tackled in the planning, authorization, installation, and operation phase. GSHPs turn out to be safe and sustainable if care is taken in such phases, and the best available techniques are adopted.

show abstract

Municipal solid waste landfills as geothermal heat sources

Cited by 47 publications

References 17 publications

Mitigation of methane emissions in a pilot-scale biocover system at the AV Miljø Landfill, Denmark: 1. System design and gas distribution

Mitigation of methane emissions in a pilot-scale biocover system at the AV Miljø Landfill, Denmark: 1. System design and gas distribution

From California dreaming to California data: Challenging historic models for landfill CH4 emissions

Assessment and Minimization of Potential Environmental Impacts of Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) Systems

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About