From Yesterday’s Trash to Tomorrow’s Energy
HAMPTON — The fetid smell of decomposing chicken bones, dirty diapers, table scraps and other garbage may actually be sweet as Waste Management finds a way to turn methane from Bethel Landfill along Interstate 64 into a profitable energy source that could supply more than 4,700 homes.
The nation’s largest trash hauler is mostly known for operating landfills across the United States, but it is diversifying its business. One of its new ventures involves building power plants that use gas from the landfills to operate engines. The electricity is then sold to power companies to meet residential and commercial demand.
On Friday, Waste Management offered a tour of the newest gas-to-energy plant on the west side of Big Bethel Road, north of I-64 and across the freeway from Sandy Bottom Nature Park. The company is contracted by Hampton to operate the 290-acre landfill, which is bigger than its counterpart in Gloucester but less than a quarter the size of the state’s largest landfill in Sussex County.
The plant is one of three of its kind that Waste Management plans to build in Virginia. The others, in Gloucester and King George County, are scheduled to open late this year or early in 2009. The three plants together are expected to generate about 19.2 megawatts per hour, enough to power more than 20,000 homes.
State Secretary of Natural Resources L. Preston Bryant Jr., attended the grand opening of the new plant, which began gearing up for operations in January. Bryant praised Waste Management’s efforts to expand renewable energy in Virginia. He said there’s a double benefit to the plant because it helps lessen dependence on foreign oil and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
"We need more facilities just like this," he said.
More than 90 percent of the electricity produced by utilities in Virginia comes from coal and nuclear power, according to Virginia Energy Patterns and Trends, a database compiled and maintained by Virginia Tech and the state Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy.
However, legislation passed last year provided financial incentives to power companies that can make renewable sources of energy a greater share of the power they produce.
"The goal is 12 percent by 2022," Bryant said.
The plant at Bethel Landfill will produce about 4.8 megawatts of electricity per hour, which is enough for more than 4,700 homes or about 8 percent of households in Hampton. The Gloucester plant will produce 6.4 megawatts of electricity, or enough for 6,500 homes.
Much of the landfill trash is organic material, such as food scraps and paper. Rotting trash is consumed by anaerobic bacteria which digest it and excrete methane gas, carbon dioxide and other gases.
At Bethel Landfill, Waste Management has drilled about 50 wells to harvest these gases, said Jim Loveland, who oversees Waste Management’s gas operations on the East Coast. The gas is pushed through pipes to a compression facility, where it is cooled.
The compression facility extracts water from the gas, filters it and pressurizes it before it is used as fuel to operate six hulking Caterpillar engines. Each engine is more than 13 tons and generates 1,148 horse power. The electricity is then distributed through power lines to a portion of the nation’s power grid that spreads as far as Chicago, though it will mostly be used in the region.The plant has safety features that include a methane detector that shuts down the generators and an exhaust system that can clear the air within seconds, Loveland said.
The electricity produced at Bethel Landfill is sold to Dominion Virginia Power. Waste Management has plans to build 60 plants across the country by 2020. Those are expected to generate enough electricity to power about 2 million homes.
In the past, the landfill’s gas was burned with a flare. The new power plant is expected to use more than 75 percent of the gas from the landfill, although the excess will still keep the flare burning, Loveland said.
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