BMW using methane to fuel its paint shop

Garbage and painting normally don't mix well, but BMW's Spartanburg facility in South Carolina has just become the first automotive paint shop to fuel its operations using methane obtained from a landfill. A 9.5-mile pipeline transports the gas derived from decomposing waste to the BMW plant from a nearby landfill.

Not only does the move allow the use of a (somewhat) renewable resource, but it is also projected to save approximately $1million per year. BMW states that the painting process accounts for nearly half of the energy used in its entire automotive assembly process, and that the energy recovered by the use of the methane is equivalent to the electricity used by nearly 10,000 homes.

[Source: Ward's]