Greenhill Energy plan for hub to turn landfill waste into green hydrogen, at Tailem Bend, South Australia

Greenhill Energy managing director Nicholas Mumford (main image and inset at left) at theTailem Bend, South Australia, site of the Riverbend Energy Hub planned to produce green hydrogen from landfill waste in three stages (inset at right).

Greenhill Energy launched their $425 million plans in 2023 to build Australia’s first full integrated processing plant at South Australia’s Tailem Bend to convert landfill waste and sustainable biomass into high-value products, such as fertilisers and synthetic fuels, and into low-cost clean hydrogen for emission-free power and transport.

Adelaide-based Greenhill Energy’s plan centred on the Riverbend Energy Hub on 20 hectares at Tailem Bend on the River Murray. Former Santos executive Nicholas Mumford, Greenhill Energy’s managing director, anticipated that the waste-to-hydrogen plant, if approved for a 2025 start, would divert up to 200,000 tonnes of waste annually within five years. This would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and produce over 100,000 tonnes of urea fertilisers using onsite carbon dioxide. The plant would be able to process up to 60,000 tonnes of dry biomass or waste per year – equal to around 1,500 fully loaded semi-trailer trucks.

Riverbend Energy Hub would use gasification, a technology already proven in the United States of America and Europe, to produce a green hydrogen from landfill. Gasification converted any carbon-based feedstock into a colourless and odourless synthesis gas or syngas using oxygen and steam. Syngas was primarily made up of four gases: hydrogen (H2), methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2).

These building block gases could be used in the next steps to derive value adding outputs, including:
        • electricity. using conventional gas turbines or hydrogen fuel cells;
        • hydrogen -based fertilisers such as ammonia and urea; and
        * synthetic fuels, including jet fuel (SAF).

Riverbend Energy Hub plan’s first of three stages would also include an integrated power plant that will be able to provide firm power into the wholesale electricity market, and in turn, support developing the green hydrogen.