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Eastern Power Limited built Canada's first two generating stations fired by landfill gas. The Brock West landfill power plant, (near Pickering, Ontario) started up in 1991. The Keele Valley landfill site (in Vaughan, Ontario) came into service in 1995. This facility is the second largest landfill gas-fueled power plant in the world.
In each case, the energy comes from the landfill's decomposing waste in the form of methane gas, which in addition to being an atmospheric pollutant, is highly odorous and volatile.
To spare the sensibilities of the local communities as well as protect them from the potential hazard of explosion, the gas was formerly collected and flared -- its heat completely wasted. Now, waste resource is tapped to produce steam which drives turbines to generate electricity. The boilers...