Proposal to Evaluate the Potential of Biogas and Lifetime of Landfills for the Production of Electrical Energy

Abstract

A study is presented to evaluate the biogas potential of landfills for the production of electric energy. Based on the mathematical method suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for calculating methane emissions, a program developed in the GNU Octave software that measures these emissions and the energy potential presented by the landfill under study. This is a very important issue on energy production from human waste, and under the topic of Earth environment conservation and cleaning. Through the software developed, a case study was carried out at the Uberlândia-MG-Brasil landfill, presenting the potential for biogas generation and electric energy, as well as the estimation of its useful life. Thus, a comparison was made of the results presented by the program and the actual data of the plant already in operation in the aforementioned landfill. This study showed that the methodology implemented in the software to quantify the potential of biogas and energy in landfills is valid, presenting approximation between real and estimated data during simulation. These are important aspects because they allow the investor in renewable energy, whether it is from the private sector or from the public sector, to have the true dimension of the financial gains and the enormous advantages for the environment.