Meeting with Sub Secretary and Visit to Landfill

Our class was privileged with the opportunity to attend a lecture and questionnaire with the State of Sao Paulo's Sub Secretary of Renewable Energies, Dr. Milton Flavio. Their news writeup can be found here. 

Most of Sao Paulo state's energy comes from hydroelectric plants, not fossil fuels. While there is still a large market here for fossil fuel energy, most of it goes towards transportation, not general electricity production. Natural gas is also a large part of the state's energy economy, however they do not utilize the process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) like we do in the US. Flavio made a point of saying how we are destroying our countries reservoirs, aquifers and environment in general. I asked him, then how do you gain your natural gas? We import it from Bolivia. Ah, political rhetoric at its best, not sure what else I expected. Maybe I'm being a little harsh because Dr. Flavio was enormously generous and thorough in his speech and answers to our penetrating questions. He was also impressed to hear that we had attended the CPFL solar farm, Henry Borden Hydroelectric plant and Bosch Flex Fuel facility and that we planned to attend the Angra Nuclear Plant; sadly due to an energy sector protest scheduled on our tour day, we will no longer be visiting Angra. 

I'll share with you an anecdote Dr. Flavio told us, Sao Paulo is the engine that drives the train of Brazil. Sao Paulo state is responsible for one third of Brazil's GDP, it is also the largest city in South America and has the unique privilege to lead the continent in an alternative energy revolution.

On one of the coldest, wettest days Sao Paulo has seen in a while, we decided to visit the Biogas Landfill and Natural Gas Plant. Everyday the city generates around 25 tons of trash and disperses it among a handfull of different landfills and recycling centers. We visited one of them that captures the natural gas releases by decomposing organic matter and uses that gas to power a generator and turbine.

This is a view from the top of the landfill, it was over 150 meters high and it gets compacted about half of one meter every year. At the bottom layer there is a 5 mm high density plastic sheeting that prevents any sort of contamination into the groundwater. There are large diameter porous pipes, under low pressure, that suck up any natural gas and route it to a central processing plant. Below is where all the pipes meet:

From there the moisture is condensed out of the feed and collected while the gas is sent to a series of engines, all of which contribute to the generation of electricity for the surrounding area. One of the major problems with this system is that it has a high initial investment and it takes decades to pay off. The site we visited was still in the red after building its system over 15 years ago. This is a large deterrent to many other landfills in the area that currently either actively burn the gas into the atmosphere or passively release it, both of which contribute to the growing levels of greenhouse gases. Also it's smelly. Very very smelly.