Chase Porter, KLIN

A new renewable energy facility announced today will utilize Lincoln’s landfill waste to convert methane gas into renewable fuels, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and generating revenue for the city through a public-private partnership.

The facility located at the Bluff Road Landfill (6001 Bluff Road) will take the 1,500 standard cubic feet of methane per minute that the landfill produces — equivalent to 4-megawatts of electricity, enough to power 4,300 houses per year — and convert it into renewable natural gas (RNG).

The City of Lincoln will partner with the Oklahoma-based Sparq Renewables to facilitate the project. Sparq will finance, build, and operate the renewable natural gas facility on the west side of the landfill. The project will cost an estimated nearly $50 million and is expected to begin in December, with a completion date of winter 2026.

The City will receive a percentage of the proceeds from Sparq’s RNG sales. Over the course of the 25-year agreement, the City expects to generate more than $96 million in RNG sales.

City leaders say the project will help foster Lincoln’s air quality while increasing the efficiency and sustainability of Lincoln’s landfill operations.

“By changing a harmful waste product into a valuable and marketable asset, we will increase the efficiency of Lincoln’s landfill operations, reduce local greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance our community’s top-ranked air quality,” Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird said. “Our landfill biogas project is an effort that makes dollars and sense.”

In addition to capturing and transforming greenhouse gases into products like vehicle fuel, the biogas facility will help subsidize landfill maintenance.

“We are pioneering the way in showing how sustainability innovations can drive both economic and environmental progress, reduce emissions, contribute to a healthier city and planet, and generate revenue for reinvestment back into the important waste management services we provide to Lincoln community members,” Lincoln Transportation and Utilities (LTU) Director Liz Elliott said.

Over the lifetime of the project, the developer estimates it will reduce emissions equivalent to the consumption of 92 million gallons of gasoline.

Sparq Renewables CEO Norman Herrera said the biogas facility will bring Lincoln avenues of revenue generation from not only renewable natural gas but a possible future in CO2 markets, hydrogen, and sustainable aviation fuels among other uses of landfill gas.

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