Landfill gas becomes first GHG reduction project registered under CDM
WASHINGTON, DC, US, 2004-11-24 Refocus Weekly
The Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol has approved its first project: a facility that converts landfill gas to energy.
The NovaGerar project in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will sell its certified
emission reductions to the Netherlands CDM Facility, which was established by
Holland and the World Bank to purchase GHG emission reductions from projects on
behalf of the Netherlands. NCDMF will purchase 2.5 megaton of CO2 equivalent
from the NovaGerar project at a price of Euro 3.35 a ton, until 2012.
The total estimated purchase will be Euro 8.5 million and the expected final
capacity will be 12 MW. NovaGerar is a joint venture of the Brazilian
environmental finance company EcoSecurities and SA Paulista, a civil engineering
and construction firm based in São Paulo.
It will collect methane in landfill gas from two dumpsites and includes a gas
collection system, leachate drainage system and a modular electricity generation
plant at each landfill site. The generators will combust the methane in the
landfill gas to produce electricity for export to the grid. Excess landfill gas,
and all gas collected during periods when electricity is not produced, will be
flared. Combustion and flaring together will reduce emissions of 12 MT over the
next 21 years.
The project will also lead to emission reductions attributable to the
displacement of grid electricity, but these reductions will not be claimed by
NovaGerar. By collecting and combusting landfill gas, the NovaGerar project’s
sanitary landfills will reduce both global and local environmental effects of
uncontrolled releases of pollutant gases.
Due to Russia’s ratification, the Kyoto Protocol will come into effect in
February. CDM is a flexible mechanism of the Protocol, which allows OECD
countries to fulfill some of their GHG emission-reduction commitments through
projects in the developing world.
“Brazil has always played an important role in the climate negotiations and it
is fitting that the first ever CDM approved project comes from that country,”
says environment secretary Peter Van Geel of the Netherlands. “The Dutch
government is very pleased because the NovaGerar project creates significant
additional social and environmental benefits.”
The NovaGerar project is in one of the five public/private carbon funds managed
by the Carbon Finance Business of the World Bank that purchase GHG emission
reductions on behalf of participants in projects in developing countries.
“The World Bank’s Carbon Finance Business has been specifically developed to
help build market confidence,” says Odin Knudsen of the Bank. “This activity
means that the carbon market is coming of age.”
“This is a very important step for the development of the CDM as a mechanism
for reaching global targets,” adds Pedro Moura Costa of EcoSecurities. “This
is a major reinforcement that we are on the right track.”
For developed countries, the establishment of a CDM facility increases the range
of options for complying with their emission reduction requirements under Kyoto
while, at the same time, promoting sustainable development, capacity building
and market creation in developing countries. Renewables can be included under
the mechanism.
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