As per the title, I’m curious of your thoughts on this concept. Methane from landfills are already used as a source of energy in many cases, but according to the EPA, a tremendous amount are not, and contribute 14% to the US’s methane gas emissions.
I’m not terribly happy how the inventors of this tech are trying to keep it a trade secret, and their estimate that an installation will cost between 1 to 10 million takes it out of reach a backyard solarpunk from taking advantage of it (though it sounds like it could be DIY’d with enough know-how).
On the face of it, if it makes more landfills become viable as a source of energy to reduce use of fossil fuels, it seems like it could be a useful tool against climate change. The best case scenario would be that a local energy co-op is able to afford the initial startup cost to get it operational, ideally using repurposed engines from used cars.
What do y’all make of it?
…isn’t that essentially a port with extra steps?..
A port is a slot for ships. Really big ships requires really big slots. The biggest modern ships are over 500 meters long. And dry docks require you to float the ship in, then seal it in and be able to drain the water out - given that those ships are ~50m wide, you’re talking about a huge construction project just to serve one ship at any given time. Turnaround for ships can be hours or days, so you might want multiple bays.
It might well be cheaper, to just have a small ship with a crane or something. Then you don’t need to build a 500mx50m swimming pool. In imperial, that’s 20 olympic swimming pools.