Regenerating Waste to Energy: A Scenario-Based Assessment of Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract

This study uses scenario-based approaches to assess the regenerative capacity of transforming organic wastes into electric power for the City of Lagos, Nigeria. Lagos represents a rapidly growing city with a population of 21 million in a developing country where serious shortages are experienced in producing sufficient electric power. As in many developing countries, rapid urbanization has lead to mismanagement of solid waste disposal, illegal deposal methods, issues in landfill infrastructure, and inefficiencies in developing recycling industries and other regenerative systems. This paper examines the feasibility of regenerating organic waste into electricity by projecting the volume of methane gas that could have been harvested in two closed landfills and one still operating landfill. The analysis applies the United States Environmental Protection Agency Landfill Gas Emissions Model (U.S. EPA LandGEM) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models to measure waste to methane gas generation by developing data on organic waste capture, landfill physical characteristics and factors for methane production, and the quality of waste management. Utilizing existing conversion models, the methane gas amounts are assessed in terms of potential electricity generation. The study also projected the waste-to-energy production of three new proposed landfills in Lagos from 2017 to 2050 and found that methane-produced electricity could meet the later energy demands of the city.