Keene plans power boost, Trash will make heat, power (Keene Sentinel, Apr. 2011)
Posted: Friday, April 29, 2011 12:15 pm
By Dave Eisenstadter Sentinel Staff
Keene’s transfer station may soon produce electricity, heat, vegetables, biofuel and fish, all from the garbage buried beneath it. Solid Waste Manager Duncan Watson announced to the finance, organization and personnel committee Thursday that the city was the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Partnering with an organization called Carbon Harvest Energy in Burlington, Vt., city officials will extend three-phase power lines from the Black Brook industrial park to the transfer station and install a second methane-to-energy generator for combined heat and power.
The transfer station already uses methane gas captured from the landfill to power the recycling center on site, but the grant will allow the gas to be converted into electricity to put back into the grid. Further, Carbon Harvest will build a greenhouse, fish hatchery and a facility that produces biofuel from algae. All of it will be powered using the methane gas, captured from decaying garbage. Apart from staff time, the city will not have to contribute money toward the installation.
Notice came that the city got the grant, called the Climate Showcase Communities program, on April 22, and the city must accept the funds by May 13. The grant requires a match of $250,000, which will be met by Carbon Harvest. The company will invest a total of $1,556,892 in phases during the project.
The phase-three power lines will take approximately three years to build. While there is a finite supply of methane gas from the landfill, Watson said it will be a long time before it runs out — plenty of time to justify building this infrastructure.
And when the methane does run out, the city would have had to build three-phase power lines out to the landfill anyway, Watson said.
Donald B. McCormick, president of Carbon Harvest Energy, said that while the Keene project will be small scale, the city itself has been a receptive place for such a venture. “Keene is an extraordinary location for its enduring focus on issues of sustainability,” McCormick said.
Keene’s planning and public works departments already have sustainability mandates and Keene State College has a biofuel research program, McCormick said. With a business model built around food and energy production, the only byproduct after energy, vegetables, fish and algae-made biofuel are produced is compost, which the company would sell to local farmers.
“Our facilities have zero fossil fuels coming in and zero waste out,” McCormick said.
The committee recommended accepting the grant and authorized the city manager to negotiate a contract with Carbon Harvest Energy. City Council will vote on the recommendation Thursday.