Date: November 2, 2009
Source: Waste Management, Inc. and The Linde Group
Linde and Waste Management Commission World's Largest Landfill to Liquefied Natural Gas Facility
Linde and Waste Management Commission World's Largest Landfill to Liquefied Natural Gas Facility
Facility to produce millions of gallons of clean, renewable biofuel for collection trucks in California
Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE: WM), North America's largest waste services company, and Linde North America, part of The Linde Group, a leading global gases and engineering company, announced today that their joint venture company has begun producing clean, renewable vehicle fuel at its facility located at the Altamont Landfill near Livermore, California. The facility is the world's largest landfill gas (LFG) to liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant.
The plant, which Linde built and operates, purifies and liquefies landfill gas that Waste Management collects from the natural decomposition of organic waste in the landfill. The plant is designed to produce up to 13,000 gallons of LNG a day - enough to fuel 300 of Waste Management's 485 LNG waste and recycling collection vehicles in twenty California communities. Since the commissioning process began in September, the plant has produced 200,000 gallons of LNG.
"The Altamont LFG-to-LNG facility enables us to recover and utilize a valuable source of clean energy in another practical way, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Conventional LNG is already a clean-burning and economically viable alternative fuel for our collection trucks," said Duane Woods, senior vice president for Waste Management's Western Group. "The ability to use recovered landfill gas to fuel our hauling fleet offers significant environmental benefits to the communities we serve in California and is a great example of how we are committed to recovering resources in waste."
Pat Murphy, president of Linde North America, said, "Linde is proud to create a clean and green energy solution for residents of California. Landfill-gas-derived LNG is a super ultra-low carbon fuel, as designated by the Air Resources Board and the Altamont project is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 30,000 tons a year. Linde's expertise in designing, developing and operating purification systems and LNG plants enables us to capture energy from waste that has decomposed in the landfill and repurposes it into a clean renewable fuel that offsets the need for fossil fuels - which reduces greenhouse gas emissions."
The Altamont LFG-to-LNG facility also meets two of California Governor Schwarzenegger's environmental directives: the Bioenergy Action Plan, which seeks to advance the use and market development of biomass as a transportation fuel, and Executive Order S-3-05, which aims to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
Four California agencies contributed to the $15.5 million Waste Management - Linde project, including the California Integrated Waste Management Board, the California Air Resources Board, the California Energy Commission and the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The management of several of the state grants has been provided by the Gas Technology Institute, which also licensed elements of the LNG production technology used in the Altamont facility.
Linda Adams, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency remarked, "The opening of the world's largest landfill gas to LNG plant right here in California is a milestone and a testament to our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now that the technology has been proven, we look forward to seeing its adoption spread so more vehicles can run on garbage."
Linde has developed and deployed technologies in the U.S. and around the world to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and emissions of greenhouse gases. These include alternative energy solutions using hydrogen, biogas, LNG and other sustainable fuels. Linde provides technical solutions for the processing, transportation and storage of renewable and alternative fuels, ranging from one of the world's largest LNG plants in Hammerfest, Norway, to hydrogen, biogas and LNG fuelling stations for automobiles, buses and trucks.
Waste Management is continually exploring new technologies and services to generate renewable energy from waste. LFG-to-LNG is a promising technology that complements Waste Management's other waste services in the areas of recycling, landfill operations, landfill gas-to-energy and waste-to-energy technology. The LFG-to-LNG technology being deployed by Linde and Waste Management at Altamont has high potential to be implemented at other landfills across North America.
Together with Waste Management's other renewable energy projects, this joint venture will contribute to the company's ongoing corporate sustainability goals, including investing in emerging technologies for managing waste, increasing fuel efficiency of its fleet by 15 percent and reducing fleet emissions by 15 percent by 2020.
Attention Television and Newspapers: video of the opening, b-roll and still photography of the facility and operations can be accessed via: www.lindeus.com/international/web/lg/us/likelgus30.nsf/docbyalias/wm_videos.
About Waste Management
Waste Management, based in Houston, Texas, is the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services in North America. Our subsidiaries provide collection, transfer, recycling and resource recovery, and disposal services. We are also a leading developer, operator and owner of waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy facilities in the United States. Our customers include residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers throughout North America. To learn more visit www.wm.com or www.thinkgreen.com.
About Linde
The Linde Group is a world leading gases and engineering company with almost 50,000 employees working in around 100 countries worldwide. In the 2008 financial year it achieved sales of $15.9 billion (euro 12.7 billion). The strategy of The Linde Group is geared towards sustainable earnings-based growth and the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services.
Linde acts responsibly towards its shareholders, business partners, employees, society and the environment - in every one of its business areas, regions and locations across the globe. Linde is committed to technologies and products that unite the goals of customer value and sustainable development. For more information, see The Linde Group online at www.linde.com.
Waste Management, from time to time, provides estimates of financial and other data, comments on expectations relating to future periods and makes statements of opinion, view or belief about current and future events. Statements relating to future events and performance are "forward-looking statements." The forward-looking statements that Waste Management makes are its expectations, opinion, view or belief at the point in time of issuance but may change at some future point in time. By issuing estimates or making statements based on current expectations, opinions, views or beliefs, Waste Management has no obligation, and is not undertaking any obligation, to update such estimates or statements or to provide any other information relating to such estimates or statements. We caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
For Further Information:
Waste Management
Media: Wes Muir
905.483.3099
www.wm.com.
Linde
Media: Kristina Schurr
908.720.3429
www.lindeus.com.
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