Converting "Dirty" Landfill Gas in Brazil Creates Jobs in Seven States

Photo courtesy of FirmGreen Inc.

In 2011, an Academy-Award-nominated documentary film, “Waste Land,” focused on Brazil’s Jardim Gramacho, one of the world’s largest solid-waste landfills and a site that generates “dirty” methane gas that causes serious environmental harm.

Thanks to the Ex-Im-supported export of equipment and services from California-based FirmGreen Inc. and other U.S. green-technology suppliers, a biogas plant is being constructed at Jardim Gramacho that will convert the site’s “dirty” methane gas into clean, usable biomethane gas.

This progress is being made possible by a $48.6 million loan from Ex-Im Bank to support the export of U.S. equipment and services to construct the Novo Gramacho biogas project. The transaction is Ex-Im Bank’s first financing for biogas reclamation and development. Ex-Im Bank’s involvement was essential because long-term financing for renewable-energy projects is limited in Brazil.

With the backing of the Ex-Im Bank direct loan, FirmGreen was able to succeed in winning the contract for the project over European competitors backed by their governments’ export-credit agencies. The biogas project will generate 165 new jobs in seven states: Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, California, Michigan, Missouri and Texas.

“The loan from Ex-Im Bank is instrumental in positioning our green technology competitively worldwide,” said FirmGreen CEO Steve Wilburn. “We believe Americans can take global leadership roles in renewable technologies, and the confidence that Ex-Im Bank has demonstrated by financing this project will help us to do that.”