A WORTH Valley council chairman has welcomed a pilot project which is harnessing power from gas given off by rotting waste at an old landfill site in his parish.

Councillor John Huxley, of Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council, said he supported the scheme, which captures methane at the closed tip at Sugden End, creating enough electricity to power 150 homes.

Cllr Huxley said: "Anything that can use gas from waste to generate electricity so close to home has my support.

"It may only be on a small scale, but it's reducing our dependency on overseas countries and making proper use of the results of waste disposal.

"I've always been very keen on recycling, and if we can exploit methane elements created by previous generations that is a good thing."

Sugden End, at Cross Roads, has been chosen as one of five closed landfills across England to take part in the £2.2 million scheme, funded by the European Union and Government agencies.

It aims to find out whether the methane given off at landfills can be put to good use, rather than just being burned off using a gas flare.

Each site is being fitted with different technologies to harness the methane, with the aim of identifying the most cost-effective method and proving the business case for its wider take-up.

The kit was fitted at Sugden End last month and will be there until September, when Bradford Council will decide whether to take the scheme forward.

The project is called ACUMEN (Assessing, Capturing and Utilising Methane from Expired and Non-operational landfills).

Geoff Baxter, of the ACUMEN project, said: "At Sugden End we've installed a small-scale landfill gas engine which will take some of the gas that is currently being flared at the site.

"This will be the first time that the gas at Sugden End has been used to generate electricity, and we feel confident that the lessons learned will be applicable to other closed landfills around the UK and Europe."

Richard Longcake, principal officer for waste management at Bradford Council, said: "Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gasses – 21 times more powerful than CO2.

"Landfills generate methane for as long as they are breaking down waste, which can go on for several decades.

"Speeding up the waste degradation process helps the restoration of landfills but this can also lead to an increase in the quantity of harmful methane emitted.

"A major part of our job is to manage this process to minimise these emissions and their impact on the environment.

"One of the best ways of doing this is to convert the gas into energy, and we are now generating about 120 kW of electricity from landfill gas into the local power grid network, which is enough to power around 150 homes."