Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sustainable Cities and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scs Eﬀect of collection eﬃciency and oxidation factor on greenhouse gas emission and life cycle cost of landﬁll distributed energy generation T.R Ayodele ⁎ , M.A Alao, A.S.O Ogunjuyigbe Power, Energy, Machine & Drive Research Group, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Technology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Energy Life cycle costs Landﬁll gas Oxidation factor Gas collection eﬃciency Environmental assessment ABSTRACT The landﬁll gas obtainable from municipal solid waste landﬁlls can be a useful energy carrier for distributed electricity generation if properly harnessed. The quantity of the landﬁll gas available for use can be greatly inﬂuenced by its collection eﬃciency and the oxidation factor. This paper therefore estimates the possible eﬀect of landﬁll gas collection eﬃciency as well as the oxidation factor on the electricity generation potential, life cycle cost and greenhouse gas emission of a landﬁll distributed generation system. To achieve this objective(s), the municipal solid waste data of the city of Ibadan is used and the amount of landﬁll gas obtainable in the short and long terms from the decomposition of waste in the landﬁll is determined using the Landﬁll Emission Generation Model software. The results showed that the average landﬁll gas generation rate based on the estimated waste proﬁle of the city was 0.2028 billion cubic metres per year which could produce about 372 Giga Watts hour per year of electricity. It also demonstrated that the collection eﬃciency and oxidation factor have reciprocating impact on the electricity generation potential obtainable from landﬁll sites. This study can be found useful for landﬁll operators, engineers, environmentalists and other stakeholders in waste management sector on the need to operate upgraded landﬁll sites for improved energy generation and environmental beneﬁts. 1. Introduction Landﬁlling has been the most inexpensive predominant method of municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal in the world, especially in de- veloping countries (Ayodele, Ogunjuyigbe, & Alao, 2018). It was re- ported that 80–90% of the MSW in Malaysia is landﬁlled and mostly by open dumping (Johari, Ahmed, Hashim, Alkali, & Ramli, 2012). It was also estimated that about 74% of the waste generated in Nigeria was disposed of either in an unkempt landﬁll or uncontrolled dumpsite (Ayodele, Alao, & Ogunjuyigbe, 2018). Similarly, 54% of the generated solid waste in the US was landﬁlled as at 2008 (Amini & Reinhart, 2011b). This practice could lead to loss of valuable resources such as land (Aguilar-Virgen, Taboada-González, Ojeda-Benítez, & Cruz-Sotelo, 2014a, Aguilar-Virgen Aguilar-Virgen, Taboada-González, Ojeda- Benítez, & Cruz-Sotelo, 2014b; Amini, Reinhart, & Niskanen, 2013) and cause great environmental impacts. Unmanaged or poorly managed landﬁlls pose serious threat to health and immediate environment due to contamination of air, soil, underground and surface waters by air pollutants emitted from landﬁll sites and leakage of leachate to water bodies. If properly managed, the landﬁll gas produced from municipal solid waste landﬁlls can be a useful energy carrier for distributed electricity generation and also ensures environmental sustainability. Energy recovery from landﬁll does not only ensure environmental sustainability but also allows revenues generation through carbon markets and from the sale of electricity (Menikpura, Sang-Arun, & Bengtsson, 2013). A carbon market is a policy approach used to control carbon emission pollution. Carbon markets are actually putting certain price (cost) per ton on carbon emitted or abated for achieving emissions reductions (Musier & Adib, 2010). The eﬀective carbon pricing per ton could be achieved through carbon taxes or emission trading and abatement incentives such as capital subsidies or feed-in-tariﬀ. Carbon prices per ton diﬀer from one country to another and among con- tributing sectors such as electricity generation, road transport, pulp and paper, cement and household energy sectors. For instance, Canada has instituted a carbon pricing program that starts with $15 per ton in 2019 and is expected to increase to $38 per ton by 2022. Other countries like Britain, United States and Australia have also put in place a carbon pricing values as $25, $5–$15 and $10 per ton respectively (Plumer & Popovich, 2019). However, the implementation of the cap-and-trade policy (carbon pricing) may bring about increase in energy prices. In France and Australia, eﬀorts to increase carbon taxes were dropped (shelved) due to ﬁerce political backlash from voter angry about the rising energy prices (Plumer & Popovich, 2019). Due to the socio-po- litical implication, eﬀective implementation of carbon pricing has to be https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101821 Received 27 March 2019; Received in revised form 2 September 2019; Accepted 2 September 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: tr.ayodele@ui.edu.ng (T.R. Ayodele), moshoodakanni4u@yahoo.com (M.A. Alao), a.ogunjuyigbe@ui.edu.ng (A.S.O. Ogunjuyigbe). Sustainable Cities and Society 52 (2020) 101821 Available online 04 September 2019 2210-6707/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T