Landfill //
Election propaganda:
landfills double dipping in ERF
ALOA CEO Max Spedding.
By Jacqueline Ong
WHEN Inside Waste stumbled across
a story in The Sydney Morning Herald
(SMH) at the end of June, just three
days before the July 2 elections, it felt
like a major case of déjà vu.
Essentially, The SMH claimed
“the country’s biggest operators” of
landfills (the paper named LMS, Energy
Developments and AGL, which all own
landfill gas operations and projects)
having “pocketed almost $200 million”
from the Emissions Reduction Fund,
without have to prove the funds had
indeed reduced their greenhouse
gas production.
Following in the footsteps of ABC
News, which aired a similar report on
Lateline one year ago, The SMH claimed
landfill operators were “double dipping”
and stood to make a “windfall”, quoting
a former landfill employee “familiar
with the industry’s operations” who said
these projects were already receiving
payments from generating electricity
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INSIDEWASTE AUGUST 2016
from captured methane under the
Renewable Energy Target (RET).
“The plain fact of the matter is
they are using the same molecules
of methane to be credited under
both schemes,” the former employee,
who requested anonymity told the
newspaper, adding that “while it is
great that the creation of electricity
using landfill gas avoids the escape
of fugitive methane emissions, it does
not represent additional abatement.
The project proponents, therefore,
stand to achieve windfall gains.”
Paul Burke, an economist from the
Australian National University was also
quoted in the story saying the landfill
industry “has clearly got a very good
deal” out of the existing schemes such
as the RET and they “don’t need to get
further subsidies.”
Max Spedding, CEO of the Australian
Landfill Owners Association (ALOA)
said he had read the story but “didn’t
take any notice because it was in an
election phase.”
“I considered it more an issue
related to the election than something
being followed through,” Spedding
told Inside Waste.
“But our concern is that the article
was poorly researched, did not address
regulatory additionality and had not
given a full examination of the ERF
method. It was based on an incorrect
assumption,” he added.
Spedding reiterated, as he did when
the ABC report was released, that the
ERF methodology adopts a regulatory
additionality approach, meaning that
for 100 units for gas, operators can only
claim 30% or 70 units under the ERF.
“That point was totally missed from
the article. The setting of the 30%
in the m