Methane from rubbish study

Press, 9 February 1982, Page 6

Methane from rubbish study

A Government-financed $12,000 study on whether some Christchurch metropolitan area rubbish could be turned, into methane gas will start soon.

A working party looking at rubbish disposal alternatives was told yesterday that study funds had been approved by the Ministry of Energy ($7000) and the Department of Trade and Industry ($5000). Cr Kathie Lowe, a city councillor and the working party’s chairman, said she loped the City Council would .know by the end of this year whether it would be feasible to build a digester plant for vegetable matter rubbish.

Mr Humphrey Archer, a •consulting engineer, said a preliminary study had shown that a rubbish digester system could be built for $2.44 million, with total annual costs of $1 million to produce about 10,000 cubbic metres of methane a day.

That methane would have to come from 20,000 tonnes of compostable metropolitan rubbish a year, such as garden wastes. Mr Archer said that amount could theoretically come from rubbish other than from domestic rubbish bags. “This could be quite a substantial income-earner,” said Mr Peter Taylor, the Christchurch Gas Company’s assistant distribution engineer. The company is considering a proposal to produce methane from wheat and barley straw. Mr Taylor said the City Council would not have any pipelines to distribute any gas it produced, because the Gas Company had the local reticulation franchise. But it was possible for both to use the same pipelines if the purity of gases they produced was compatible. “The logical way out would be for the City council to sell its methane to the Gas Company.” he said.