Landfill methane emission expert Jean Bogner to speak at UD

11:18 a.m., April 6, 2015--Jean Bogner, professor emerita at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contributing author, will discuss measuring and mitigating landfill methane emissions at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, April 16, in 209 Penny Hall on the University of Delaware campus in Newark.

The lecture is free and open to the public. It is hosted by the Department of Geological Sciences, which is housed in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment.

Events Stories

June 5: Blue Hen 5K

University of Delaware graduates planning to attend Alumni Weekend are encouraged to register for the annual Blue Hen 5K walk and run, which will be held Sunday morning, June 5.

June 6-9: Food and culture series

The 20th annual June Lecture Series at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UD in Wilmington will be held June 6-9. Titled 'June a la Carte,' this year's program focuses on great political documents, feminism, world politics and a Newark cuisine sampler.

• June 6-9: Food and culture series
• Through June 30: 'Saving White Clay Creek'
• July 22: WWE Heatwave Tour
• Through Sept. 16: Women of color in academia

Methane emissions contribute significantly to climate change, and can be released from many natural and human-made sources. Landfills are the third largest source of methane emissions in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency website.

Bogner’s presentation will discuss her research developing and applying models that measure and predict landfill methane emissions. The models explain how factors such as soil makeup, engineered gas recovery systems and seasonal climate affect the amount and rate of methane generated by a landfill. 

The models also help researchers determine how this methane is transported into surrounding environments, and how this might affect projected climate change.

Bogner, who served as president of a landfill gas consultancy for 15 years before joining UIC, helped develop the California Landfill Methane Inventory Model, a method to estimate the amount of methane in a landfill. The model was field-validated in California and subsequently applied to 29 international sites.

About the speaker 

Jean Bogner has more than 35 years’ experience related to landfill gas emissions monitoring and recovery. In 2007, Bogner was the coordinating lead author for the waste chapter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment Report (2007): Mitigation of Climate Change. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and its thousands of contributing members, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Albert (Al) Gore Jr. "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Bogner is a recipient of the Solid Waste Association of Northern America Lifetime Achievement Award, University of Illinois Distinguished Alumni Award and the Argonne National Laboratory Exceptional Achievement Award, among other accolades.

Article by Caren Fitzgerald