NASA Warms Up to Maryland's Trash

  • Released Monday, September 18, 2006
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Trash to Gas Process - Landfill gas provides all of the center's heating needs 95 percent of the time, with natural gas serving as the back up. Methane is a natural product of trash. In this animation, wells draw methane out of the landfill and feed it to an on site purification plant. Before Goddard started using the gas, all of it was burned off in a flare. Now, the gas is intercepted from the flare and directed to a purification plant where the gas is cleaned and sent to Goddard.

This animation provides an illustration of the landfill methane collection process.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

This page was originally published on Monday, September 18, 2006.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:55 PM EDT.