New natural gas facility taps into landfill for energy

On Friday, officials unveiled an operation that will turn garbage into clean energy.

Aria Energy’s Butler Renewable Natural Gas facility will pull gases out of the Butler County landfill and extract methane from it.

From there, a pipeline will transport it to the Black Hills Energy distribution center in David City.

“Thirty–one hundred homes are going to be heated annually by this particular installation,” Black Hills Vice President of operations Jeff Sylvester said.  “That’s a big deal.”

They’re not the only ones excited.

Sen. Deb Fischer and Lt. Gov. Mike Foley toured the new plant and sang their praises as well.

“But for this plant, methane gas would be flared off and wasted,” Foley said.  “And what a shame because there’s a renewable source that can be put to use to power our homes, our factories and our farms.”

The EPA says landfills contributed 14 percent of human–related methane emissions in the U.S. in 2017.

Projects like this put that gas to use before it rises into the atmosphere.

Aria Energy said if there’s enough gas in the landfill, they may expand the facility.  It might be a few years to find out if they’ll do that.