A Black Hills Energy subsidiary recently bought its first renewable natural gas production facility ever, in Dubuque. The facility is located at Dubuque's solid waste site, and uses methane from its landfill to produce natural gas.
Katie Fleming is the chief sustainability officer for Black Hills Energy.
"Any time you have organic material, in this case, it's waste that's in the landfill, when it's not exposed to oxygen, it will break down through a process called anaerobic digestion and it will break down and start to emit methane."
Fleming says some landfills burn the methane to lessen its environmental impact.
At the Dubuque landfill, the methane is fed into the facility, cleaned, tested, and distributed via Black Hills' biogas pipelines. The utility company owns three pipeline systems in Iowa.
"You're not burning the methane and releasing it as CO2, you're actually capturing all of it and essentially recycling it," she said. "You're taking that methane and then using it as fuel to either power vehicles or heat homes, which is exactly what's happening in this case."
Last year, the facility produced enough renewable natural gas to heat more than 1,800 homes.
Fleming says that the two people working at the facility will continue working there. And the city of Dubuque will continue making money from the sale of the gas.
The company hopes to increase production in the future.
