LI-COR Presents Landfill Methane Emission Data at Global Waste Management Symposium

LINCOLN, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Measuring greenhouse gas emissions at landfills using continuous monitoring offers new insight in estimating total annual emissions. LI-COR Principal Scientist, Liukang Xu presented methane emission data collected from a landfill at Global Waste Management Symposium in Phoenix, AZ on October 1^st, 2012 and discussed the advantages of continuous monitoring over traditional interval monitoring. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has recently enacted a new rule related to the mandatory reporting of greenhouse gases, which requires some municipal solid waste landfills to report their emissions of greenhouse gases, including methane.  

“The research shows that methane emissions strongly depend on barometric pressure changes, leading to large variations between methane emissions from day-to-day”

The talk entitled, ‘Impact of Changes in Barometric Pressure on Landfill Methane Emission,’ showed greenhouse gas data collected from a landfill and demonstrated the need for continuous measurements to estimate annual total of methane emissions at landfills. “The research shows that methane emissions strongly depend on barometric pressure changes, leading to large variations between methane emissions from day-to-day,” says Liukang Xu, principal scientist.  The results showed that measurements taken at weekly or quarterly time intervals using techniques other than continual monitoring will have large variation in measured emission rates and inevitably yield large uncertainties.

Eddy Covariance is the most widely used method for continuous monitoring. Eddy Covariance is an accurate and direct method presently available for quantifying exchanges of carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, various other gases, and energy between the surface of earth and the atmosphere. For more information on this method, go to www.licor.com/ec-analyzers.

The Global Waste Management Symposium serves as a forum for the presentation of both applied and fundamental research and case studies on waste management. The 3-day event serves the needs of the landfill community within the solid waste and recycling industry and hosts participants from a community of designers, facility owners and operators, policymakers, and researchers from around the world.

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LI-COR Biosciences is a leader in the design and manufacture of instrument systems for environmental and biotechnology research. LI-COR instruments for photosynthesis, greenhouse gas analysis, and light measurement are recognized worldwide for standard-setting innovation in plant science research and environmental monitoring. The company is a pioneer in the development of infrared fluorescence labeling and detection systems for such areas as drug discovery, genomics, and small animal in vivo imaging.

Founded in 1971, the privately held company is based in Lincoln, Nebraska, with subsidiaries in Germany and the United Kingdom. LI-COR systems are used in over 100 countries and are supported by a global network of distributors.