Life cycle assessment as a decision support tool for landfill gas-to energy projects

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from MSW landfill, and control methods to eliminate or minimize these impacts including energy recovery from landfill gas (LFG) of MSW landfill in Thailand have been evaluated. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used as the analytical tool to evaluate the environmental consequences of landfilling holistically. The economic implications of the control methods are also briefly assessed. The results show that in terms of GHG emissions as well as in terms of economics, it is more advantageous to have a large centralized landfill and produce electricity from the LFG rather than having several small, localized landfills despite significantly lower transportation requirement for the latter case. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the global warming potential was sensitive to gas collection efficiency as well as methane oxidation rate in the landfill. This study shows the utility of a life cycle approach for evaluating LFG-to-energy (LFGTE) projects.