Tanzania: Closure of Mtoni Gas Project Irks Investor

Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)

Finnigan Wa Simbeye

27 June 2011

ELECTRICITY production from Mtoni dumpsite in Temeke District, Dar es Salaam Region would be possible if its closure was done in 2016 to provide sufficient solid waste generated gas to sustain such a project.

Italian Consorzio Stabile Globus in partnership with Dar es Salaam City Council invested two million euros (about. 4bn/-) at the former dumpsite in 2007 to generate 2.5MW of electricity from an estimated 1.8 million tons of solid waste by January 2008.

“The dumpsite closure is one of the worst things that happened at Mtoni landfill gas project just as would be the case for any landfill project. New additions of collected waste would have increased the amount of generated landfill gas,” the company’s engineer who visited the site recent, Matteo Zanini said.

He said initial agreement was that Mtoni dumpsite would have closed in 2016 to ensure that enough solid waste was dispose which could then generate more gas to generate electricity but the DCC decided to close the site earlier.

“As a consequence of the closure of this landfill the amount of gas that can be extracted has been drastically reduced and is actually only around 21,000 CERs (certified emission reductions) per year.

The project participants would be far happier to work with an open active landfill, which houses new fresh waste every day instead of the current closed landfill,” Mr Zenini argued. The CSG engineer pointed out that the amount of generated landfill gas would be much higher if Mtoni dumpsite was not closed down and revenue from CER would also be higher.

Last year, Mtoni CDM project was named among 855 Kyoto Protocol’s CDM projects that received a total of 500 million certified emission reductions (CERs). CDM Secretariat spokesman in Bonn (Germany), David Abbas said in a statement that last year’s achievement in issuing CERs in 70 countries was a good performance.

“A project in Tanzania has been issued 13,587 CERs,” said the statement said. One CER equates to an emission reduction of one ton of carbon dioxide.

The Italian firm was criticized by Assistant Director for Environment at Vice President’s Office, Richard Muyungi for failing to meet key benchmarks as per the Project Design Document (PDD) presented to CDM secretariat in 2007.

But Zenini withered away the criticism saying, “Without fresh waste, the amount of generated landfill gas slowly but inevitably decreases over the years, thus making the project less economic and attractive.”

Among other things, the PDD targeted to generate electricity, provide employment to neighbouring residents, properly cover the dumpsite so that methane does not escape, a technician on site and maximum security of the area.

But a ‘Daily News’ survey of the area last week established that security is relaxed, the site technician of the biogas plant is rarely available while erosion is slowly washing away the soil cover exposing solid waste.

Mr Muyungi expressed his disappointment of the project’s performance earlier this year when he talked to ‘Daily News’ and threatened to write an official letter to the investors (DCC and CSG) demanding that they honour benchmarks as indicated in the PDD.

“This project is supposed to have started generating 2.5 megawatts of electricity from the dumpsite gas, but so far they are still using Tanesco power and sometimes diesel generators,” Mr Muyungi said.

While acknowledging that gas was insufficient at the dumpsite to generate 2.5MW of power as the PDD stated, the investors could still generate some power to help run the plant instead of simply flaring methane.

But Zenini argued that it’s not possible to generate any electricity from the site and that despite all shortfalls, the country’s only CDM project has improved the environment and the living conditions of people in a Least Developed Country in addition to meeting all United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change requirements.

Residents of Mtoni are complaining of insecurity as the project area is not fenced while leachate is oozing into a nearby Kizinga river which is used to water vegetable gardens in the area. Residents also complained of smoke coming out of the poorly covered dumpsite when it rains heavily.

But the Italian firm has vowed to keep its eye on the project which will take many more years to recover the investment which was targeting to produce more than 202,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide and earn more than US$38,800 (about 57.8m/-) per year.

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