German automaker BMW is not only looking to make its cars greener, but it is also seeking for ways to improve sustainability of its manufacturing process. The company today announced it has launched a pilot project that aims at using methane gas from local landfill as source of hydrogen fuel.The first phase studies the feasibility of this project, while the follow-up phases of the project will provide infrastructure for using this hydrogen to fuel the company’s entire fleet of material handling equipment.In September 2010, BMW completed installation of a hydrogen storage and distribution area within the existing Energy Center at its North American manufacturing plant in South Carolina. The company is using hydrogen fuel cells to power nearly 100 material handling vehicles in the plant’s new 1.2 million square foot assembly facility that produces the new BMW X3 Sports Activity Vehicle.Success of this new project will allow BMW to transition from the pilot-scale system into a full-scale system capable of supporting the largest single-site deployment of fuel cell material handling equipment in the world.“This project allows testing of valuable technology to determine if using locally-sourced hydrogen in our fuel cell equipment can provide the necessary performance needed to expand our hydrogen fuel cell fleet,” said Josef Kerscher, President of BMW Manufacturing. “In the spirit of continuous improvement, we are always pursuing additional, sustainable methods of capturing renewable energy, including our existing source of landfill gas.”But this is not the only project that BMW is involved in. The company is also taking part in two projects with the US Department of Energy (DOE) to develop efficient storage of hydrogen for use in future motor vehicles.