Greenland signs up for waste-to-energy tech

US upstream services company Babcock & Wilcox has secured a contract worth more than $35mn to install infrastructure to support a waste-to-energy stream in the Danish overseas territory of Greenland, it said September 27.

It will install the necessary infrastructure to use municipal waste as a methane feedstock for national waste management company ESANI.

“The facilities, to be built in the cities of Nuuk and Sisimiut, will provide district heating for residents and businesses while also eliminating methane – a greenhouse gas created by waste as it decomposes in landfills,” the US company explained. “In addition to using municipal waste, the facilities also will process waste recovered from existing landfills, reducing future methane emissions from those landfills.”

Babcock & Wilcox pointed to data from the US Environmental Protection Agency stating that waste-to-energy technology is a powerful tool in the fight against climate change.

“Waste-to-energy technologies are some of the most effective solutions for combating climate change by reducing methane emissions from landfills and can be combined with carbon capture technologies to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said the CEO of the company’s renewable energy division, Jimmy Morgan.

Elsewhere in the region, members of the European Union are taking the initiative on emerging waste-to-energy technology. Spanish utility Naturgy said in early June that it became the first company to inject renewable landfill gas into Spain's distribution system, hailing the development as a "turning point" in the country's energy transition.