Jan 17 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Annie Johnson The Roanoke Times, Va.

As people everywhere search for alternative sources of energy amid rising electricity rates and waste disposal costs, governments in Western Virginia are trying to tap an unconventional power source -- the flammable gas produced when heaps of trash rot in municipal landfills.

Solid waste authorities, including those in Montgomery County and the Roanoke Valley, are looking to sell methane or allow companies to create on-site plants to produce electricity from the secreted gas.

Besides a possible revenue stream that could help offset disposal costs, capturing the colorless, odorless gas is beneficial to the environment.

Methane is a major greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for about nine to 15 years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It is more than 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.

But selling the stuff might prove a difficult task in an area dominated by smaller, rural landfills where getting gas to potential end-users can be pricey for investors.

"What you find, particularly in the southwestern end, is a number of smaller landfills that typically are not going to produce the quantity of gas that is going to make it as attractive as larger landfills," said Dan Miles, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority.

At Maplewood Landfill in Amelia, where Salem ships its trash, a gas project used for engines is up and running thanks to 3.8 million tons of waste.

And already, the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority has fished for investors to develop a project using the methane gas at the since-closed Rutrough Road landfill near Explore Park. That effort yielded only one proposal, which, Miles said, wasn't a good match. Rutrough emits between 150,000 and 200,000 cubic feet of methane per day.

A landfill would have to produce in the neighborhood of 500,000 cubic feet per day to experience a sizable profit, Miles added. But smaller amounts of gas could be used for other projects.

About 187,000 cubic feet of gas is produced per day at the Montgomery County Solid Waste Authority landfill, enough to roughly fill more than 5 million one liter bottles.

The authority recently advertised for individuals or businesses interested in purchasing the waste gas to submit proposals, said Alan Cummins, executive director of the authority.

Cummins said the landfill, which closed in 2002, contains enough quality methane to last another 20 years. He also said that adding some sort of underground blower could increase the amount of methane produced off the site.

Cummins hopes a local investor will buy the methane from the authority. That might even translate into lower tipping fees for customers, he said.

If used as a boiler fuel, a seller of the gas might expect to get about 80 percent of the prevailing rate for natural gas, Miles said. In August, the last month for which there is a recorded price, natural gas used for electric power was $6.80 per thousand cubic feet, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

"If it generates a little bit of revenue for this facility and we can possibly drop our next tipping fees, it helps all of the authority members," Cummins said. But mostly, Cummins said the authority is interested in eliminating methane as a liability.

"It would be nice to be able to reuse and recycle the gas," he said.

Methane gas from landfills is usually trapped in a pipe and set on fire. That's the way the Rutrough Road landfill deals with it now.

Scientists have been looking for a process to make better use of the gas for more than 20 years.

The EPA created the Landfill Methane Outreach Program in 1994 to promote the gas as a realistic energy source. Landfills are one of the largest sources of methane, according to the EPA, accounting for 24 percent of the gas released into the atmosphere in 2005.

As of 2006, the program had 600 partners nationwide.

In Virginia, there are about 20 active landfill gas projects being conducted for energy projects. Those landfills emit between 5,000 and 4 million cubic feet of methane per day. The closest to Roanoke are two projects in Lynchburg.

"It is popular," said Aziz Farahmand, waste program manager in the Department of Environmental Quality's Roanoke office. "There are landfills in the eastern part of the state and Richmond area where the gas has been used."

For now, the waste authority in Montgomery County said it has a few interested parties.

"We may not get any proposals, I don't know," Cummins said. "You never what's going to happen, that's the cool thing."