Methane-powered BMW Plant Gets More Efficient

[JoshCalkins]

BMW's Methane Pipeline

BMW's assembly plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, has an unusual energy source: trash. Starting in December of 2002, the plant was connected to a local landfill via a 9.5 mile long pipeline. At the landfill, methane was collected from decomposing refuse, which was then pumped through the pipeline to power four turbines at the BMW plant. The original turbines supplied 14% of the plant's electrical needs, as well as heating water for manufacturing purposes. The plant is now completing an upgrade to the system that replaces the four turbines with two larger and more efficient turnbines (two of the originals will be kept as back-ups). The final tally? The same amount of methan used in the original system will be fed through these two turbines, and the system will provide 60% of the plant's total energy needs.

The Spartanburg Complex

The old system proved to be a huge cost-saving measure for BMW. On average, the system saved $5 million each year in energy costs since it came online at the end of 2002. The new system, which required an initial $12 million investment, is on track to provide an average of $7+ million each year, easily returning the value of the investment in less than two years.

And the benefit is not just to BMW's wallet, but also to the air quality of the Spartanburg area. By using the methan system instead of power from a local coal-fired power plant, BMW is preventing 92,000 tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere each year. For a little perspective, if you wanted to get rid of 92,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year, you would need to plant a forest of trees thirty times larger than New York City's Central Park, a total of 23,000 acres.

[Shocka]

Thats pretty ingenious i wonder if others have done the same.

[JoshCalkins]

Originally Posted by Shocka Thats pretty ingenious i wonder if others have done the same.

Methane from landfills has been used to generate power for industrial sites before. There's a big factory in Oklahoma that uses methane power to produce building materials like cement, cinder blocks, etc. I don't know if any other automakers have done it before.

[Shocka]

They probably modeled it after mad max, beyond thunderdome. Such a playbook for how the future should work.