14 DAY TRIAL // This past December 4, General Motors announced that it was to spend an impressive $24 million (€17.66 million) on greening up its working agenda.
More precisely, the company wants to invest heavily in electrical generation equipment that will allow it to produce electricity from landfill gas, i.e. the mix of different gases that is created by microorganisms living in landfills.
The state-of-the-art equipment will be installed at the company's Ford Wayne, Ind., and Orion, Mich., assembly plants, General Motors explains in a press release.
The company estimates that, once up and running at full capacity, the equipment will have an energy generating capacity of over 14 megawatts, and that this will translate into an 89,000 metric tons reduction in the amount of CO2 that General Motors puts in the planet's atmosphere annually.
By the looks of it, this 89,000 metric tons reduction in the company's annual CO2 emissions is the equivalent of 18,542 vehicles being taken off roads for an entire year.
By harvesting landfill gas as an energy source, the company also expects to save some $10 million (€7.36 million) yearly. Otherwise put, the equipment might be expensive, but it will pretty much pay for itself in no time.
Interestingly enough, both the Fort Wayne and the Orion assembly plant have been using landfill gas for several years. The first reportedly started using this energy source in 2002, whereas the second started relying on this energy source in 1999.
What General Motors now wishes to do is up the facilities' reliance on said renewable energy source. Thus, the company expects that, by May 2014, 54% of Orion's energy demands will be met by landfill gas and that, by the same date, 40% of Fort Wayne's power needs will also be dealt with by harvesting landfill gas.
Commenting on the importance of this project, Rob Threlkeld, GM global manager of renewable energy, said that, “We have made a public commitment to increase our use of renewable energy within GM to 125 megawatts by 2020. This expansion represents more than 10 percent of that goal.”