HOUSTON, TX – August 20, 2024 — Today, Archaea Energy, a subsidiary of bp (NYSE: BP), and Waste Connections, Inc. celebrate the opening of their first renewable natural gas (RNG) plant in Pennsylvania. The plant is adjacent to the Bethlehem Landfill in Lower Saucon Township owned by a Waste Connections subsidiary and came online in July.
“We are safely and efficiently scaling up at pace and building momentum with this new plant in Bethlehem,” Archaea Energy CEO Starlee Sykes said. “Archaea has brought six plants online to date in 2024, and we’re proud to continue to bring our commitment to capture landfill emissions and provide customers with lower-emission, lower-carbon fuel to the Keystone State.”
The Bethlehem Landfill plant can process up to 3,500 standard cubic feet of landfill gas per minute (scfm) into RNG – enough gas to heat more than 14,000 homes annually, according to the EPA’s Landfill Gas Energy Benefits Calculator.
The Bethlehem Landfill plant converts landfill gas, a natural byproduct of the decomposition of waste, collected from the landfill into RNG, the use of which can lead to local air quality benefits and an increase and diversity of domestic energy production, according to the US EPA1.
The partnership with Archaea and Waste Connections spans several years. In addition to the new RNG plant in Pennsylvania, Archaea owns and operates RNG plants adjacent to landfills owned by Waste Connections in Nebraska, New York and Oklahoma. The companies also have plants that convert landfill gas to electricity in Washington, Colorado and Oregon.
With the 2022 acquisition of Archaea, bp is the largest RNG producer in the US, enhancing its ability to support customers’ decarbonization goals and progressing its aim to reduce the average lifecycle carbon intensity of the energy products it sells.
1 At https://www.epa.gov/lmop/renewable-natural-gas#benefits the EPA states that benefits to RNG include fuel diversity, economic, local air quality and greenhouse gas reduction benefits. Specifically, it states, “Use of RNG increases and diversifies domestic energy production.” and “Replacing traditional diesel or gasoline with RNG can significantly reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, resulting in local air quality benefits.”
About Archaea Energy
Archaea Energy, a bp-owned company, is the largest RNG producer in the US, with an industry-leading platform and expertise in developing, constructing and operating RNG facilities to capture waste emissions and convert them into low carbon fuel. Additional information is available at bp.com/archaea.
About Waste Connections
Waste Connections (wasteconnections.com) is an integrated solid waste services company that provides non-hazardous waste collection, transfer and disposal services, including by rail, along with resource recovery primarily through recycling and renewable fuels generation. The Company serves approximately nine million residential, commercial and industrial customers in mostly exclusive and secondary markets across 46 states in the U.S. and six provinces in Canada. Waste Connections also provides non-hazardous oilfield waste treatment, recovery and disposal services in several basins across the U.S. and Canada, as well as intermodal services for the movement of cargo and solid waste containers in the Pacific Northwest.