Port Mann Landfill Gas Energy Project
Since 1993, Norseman Engineering has been involved in extracting and utilizing landfill gas at the Port Mann Landfill in Surrey, B.C. The project has been a successful joint venture between the City of Surrey, Norseman Engineering, E.H. Hanson Engineering, and Georgia Pacific Canada Ltd. as the end user. Georgia Pacific made for an ideal client as it had a large fuel requirement for a drying kiln in wallboard production, and was located a short distance away from the landfill site.
The project, located on the Port Mann landfill site, consists of an network of wells that collect the landfill gas, a compressor station to apply a vacuum, and a 6km transmission pipeline that carries gas to Georgia Pacific. In addition to the ideal location, an innovative effort on the part of Georgia Pacific was the modification of its kiln burners to allow for the burning of a landfill and natural gas mixture. A blending station was also designed to monitor the highly variable methane levels of the incoming landfill gas and blend it with natural gas to produce a mixture with consistent energy level. Now, nearly 10 percent of Georgia Pacific's energy requirements are met at a discount by landfill gas, accounting for thousands of dollars in yearly fuel savings.
The benefits of this project to all participating members and the community are numerous. The landfill gas that would have been normally released into the atmosphere or migrated into the local community is now productively used, and constitutes a yearly reduction in green house gas emissions, equivalent to aproximately 18,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. The City of Surrey benefits from a royalty on the sale of recovered gas and the additional work provided during the project's construction and periodic maintenance.
A more comprehensive technical bulletin on the Port Mann project can be found here.