South Korea's largest garbage-based power plant becomes operational

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The new garbage-fueled power plant is now partially online, and the power that it produces is expected to reduce its imports of crude oil by 500,000 barrels a year, once the plant is fully operational.

This new 50-megawatt plant was designed to provide power to more than 180,000 households. When it became operational just this week, a huge garbage dump in the city of Incheon -- which is west of Seoul -- was transformed from a nasty dumping ground of all types of garbage into a possible example of the next generation of power assembly in an ultimate example of garbage being recycled.

The new garbage-fueled power plant uses only methane gas naturally generated from the decomposing garbage on the site to power itself. Park Han-Eop, a waste official in South Korea, says, "It reduces greenhouse gas emissions by burning away methane and avoids burning more fossil fuel for electricity."

It is estimated that the new power plant will save South Korea in the area of 500,000 barrels of imported oil, and the plant will and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.37 million tons per year, according to Eop.

The private energy company Eco Energy invested $83 million dollars in building the power plant in return for operating it for 11 years before handing the commercial rights over to the government. South Korea has 12 other landfill gas power plants either being built or operating across the country, mostly small plants producing one to six megawatts.

Currently, South Korea relies heavily on nuclear power plants -- which supply 40 percent of demand to the entire country for its power needs. The country imports oil for 100 percent of its oil needs.

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