Mitigation of methane emissions from sanitary landfills and sewage treatment plants in Jordan

Mitigation of Greenhouse gases deals with measures to reduce the vulnerability of a certain sector to climate change through minimizing net emissions. In this paper, mitigation scenarios aimed at reducing Jordan methane emissions from sewage treatment plants and sanitary landfill sites were proposed and investigated. In the case of sewage treatment plants, As-Samra plant (the largest in Jordan) was selected for this mitigation study. Two scenarios (I and II) were proposed, the first was to expand the plant by the year 2005 using waste stabilization ponds the current treatment technology, and the second scenario involved switching the treatment technology to activated sludge type when the expansion starts in the year 2005. For sanitary landfills, the proposed mitigation scenario was the construction of two biogas plants, each with a processing capacity of 1,000 tons of solid waste per day at Rusaifeh and Akaider—the two largest landfills in Jordan at the beginning of the year 2005. For As-Samra plant, the cumulative reduction in methane emissions by the year 2030 was calculated to be 49 and 146 Gg under mitigation scenarios I and II, respectively. On the other hand, the biogas plant scenario reduces the methane emissions at each landfill by 28.1 Gg annually. The total emission reduction from both landfills in the life span (25 years) of the biogas plants will be about 1,406 Gg CH4. In addition, this scenario generates electricity at a cost of 4.6 cents per kWh, which is less than the Jordan electric long-run marginal cost of generation at 5.5 cents/kWh. Moreover, annual savings of US$4.65 million will be achieved by the replacement of fuel oil with the generated biogas. The mitigation scenarios presented in this paper include measures that positively contribute to the national development of Jordan in addition to considerable reduction in methane emission.. This forms a win–win situation that favors the adoption of investigated mitigation scenarios by the decision-makers of the waste sector in Jordan.