The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday, May 9, edition that Enbridge executive vice-president Cynthia Hansen says renewable natural gas offers an opportunity to provide affordable, reliable, low-carbon fuel to meet Canada's energy needs. The Globe's guest columnist Michael Lewis writes that landfills and other contaminated sites across North America have found a new life recently as methane gas capture facilities and solar hubs that can power municipalities and generate revenue through energy market sales. Efforts to give landfills a fresh start gained momentum in the late 1970s.
In 1989, the National Contaminated Sites Remediation Program was established in Canada. Landfills have functioned as an incubator for engineering innovation and a living laboratory where properties of renewable natural gas (RNG), such as landfill gas, can be studied. Landfill gas processing is expected to expand into a $5.2-billion (U.S.) global market by 2028. Enbridge says Canada has more than 10,000 landfill sites that account for 20 per cent of national methane emissions with only a third of the emissions captured and utilized. Mr. Lewis reports that landfill-derived gas could potentially power 400,000 homes a year.
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