Landfill power plant to be built in Korea

Korea´s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy has approved a project to build the world´s largest power plant to be fueled with landfill gas as part of its effort to expand the use of alternative energy in Korea.

The Korean Herald, says Environment News Daily, reports that the 50,000-kilowatt power plant will be operated with methane gas from a landfill mine in Baekseok-dong, Incheon.

Once completed, the facility will produce about 400,000 megawatt-hours of electricity, which is enough to supply about 100,000 homes.

Projected to cost about 9.49 billion won (US$7.97 million) in total, construction will begin this October and end in October 2005 for business launch in November of that year. Working under the build, transfer, operate model, Eco Energy will build the plant, manage it for 11 years, and then transfer operations to the Korean government.

“The new generator will be larger than the 45,000-kilowatt one in Los Angeles, making it the largest in the world,” explained Lee Gwang-min of the policy division of the ministry. “It will bring in about 26 billion won of profit annually from electricity sales and from the improvement of the environment around the landfill mine.” The ministry plans to explore other opportunities in alternative energy, including those based on wind and solar power.

Specifically, Commerce Minister Yoon Jin-sik said yesterday he would boost investment for research in this field by 298 percent to 241.5 billion won next year. “By 2011, we will increase the share of alternative energy in total energy production to 5 percent,” he claimed.