Stuart Landfill Gas Project

Stuart Landfill Gas Project is a landfill gas emissions avoidance project located at the Stuart Waste Facility, approximately 12 kilometres southeast of Townsville in Queensland. Registered in August 2013, the project operates across the footprint of the region's primary waste management facility, though the exact registered project area size is unpublished. The immediate surroundings are heavily industrial, situated near the Mount Stuart Power Station and Sun Metals Zinc Refinery, while the broader regional land use is predominantly cattle grazing. The local environment experiences a dry tropical savanna climate characterized by high-intensity summer monsoon rainfall and long, dry winters. Soils in these coastal plains are generally heavy clays and duplex soils that are highly reactive and prone to waterlogging.

Landfill gas projects under the Carbon Farming Initiative involve installing a network of extraction wells and pipes to capture methane gas generated by the decomposition of organic waste in an oxygen-poor environment. A standard requirement of the methodology is the destruction of this captured methane, typically through flaring or electricity generation, which converts it into carbon dioxide and water to significantly reduce its overall global warming potential.

This transitioning project captures gas from both legacy waste (deposited before the scheme's baseline dates) and non-legacy waste, having transitioned from a previously revoked method to the 2015 methodology determination. Developed by LMS Energy in partnership with the Townsville City Council, the site is also known as the Stuart Bio-Energy Facility. While initially reliant on gas flaring, recent expansions, including the installation of 16 additional gas wells in November 2020, have set the stage for installing generator modules to convert the captured methane into renewable electricity that will feed directly into the local power grid. The project was also highly successful in fulfilling its Commonwealth obligations, completing a Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC164941) for 385,393 tonnes of fixed delivery abatement in October 2021.