Approach:

  1. Introduction
  2. Write about the feasibility of methane to be used as energy and fuel. Also, write about the limiting factors in brief.
  3. Clearly delineate the potential of methane usage in helping socio economic development and environmental protection.

The use of methane as a source of energy and fuel is useful to improve landfill safety, generate electricity, reduce greenhouse emissions, and to earn carbon emission reduction credits. The feasibility of Methane as a source of energy depends upon the following factors:

  • Availability: Methane can be extracted from natural sources as well as anthropogenic activities. With current available technology, it is very difficult to capture Methane from Oceans, termites and wetlands; however, it is possible to extract methane from landfills, agriculture waste and coal bed methane.
  • Accessibility: In India, coal bed methane and landfills are considered as potential sources for energy. However, the use of landfills has practical challenges like:
  • Direct exposure to methane gas and seasonal changes in temperature etc.
  • A lack of local service and technology providers for methane identification, quantification, and mitigation activities.
  • There are legal and regulatory in obtaining access to the electricity grid to sell back power.
  • Affordability: Many coal mines do not have adequate internal investment capital for project funding, and thus a lack of adequate financing is remains an important challenge.

Contribution in Socio and Economic development and environment protection:

  • Collection and use of methane provides a valuable, clean-burning energy source that promotes local economic development and reduces local environmental pollution.
  • Methane capture will witness improvement in local air quality and, ozone related-mortalities will decrease.
  • It will benefit water quality, particularly in the agricultural sector, via improved management of animal waste.
  • Producing energy from methane recovery avoids the use of conventional energy resources, reducing end-user and power plant emissions of CO2 and air pollutants.
  • Capturing methane from coal mines, landfills, and oil and gas facilities can also improve safety conditions by reducing explosion hazards.
  • It will lead to increase in local employment as methane capture plants creates jobs associated with the design, construction, and operation of energy recovery systems.
  • By linking communities with innovative ways to deal with the waste it can help in, better waste management and responsible community planning.
Legacy Editor Changed status to publish October 27, 2022