Gas project at Bristol, Va., landfill moving forwardApr 10 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - David McGee Bristol Herald Courier, Va.
A project to capture methane gas at the city landfill and convert it to electricity is moving forward. On Tuesday the Bristol, Va., City Council heard a 40-minute update about the plans of INGENCO Distributed Energy, which plans to construct a plant at the landfill and begin selling the power to the Tennessee Valley Authority next year. The city contracted the Richmond, Va.-based firm last year after negotiations broke down with another firm. The city expects to receive about 15 percent of the firm's revenues from its sales. "Our anticipations of revenue are pretty substantial -- about $200,000 a year. It may be more," City Manager Dewey Cashwell said after the meeting. "The landfill is very costly to operate so anything we can do to make money with it is a good thing." Gas from the landfill is expected to generate about 2.8 megawatts of power, or enough to serve 40,000 homes, according to Tom Hecmanczuk, INGENCO's director of construction. The company is currently trying to get air pollution permits required to build a planned 6,000-square-foot generating station on about two acres at the city-owned landfill, Hecmanczuk said. The firm has an agreement to sell its power to TVA through Bristol Virginia Utilities, which is finalizing an agreement. "We have a foundation design, we've taken soil samples and evaluated the soil for stability. The biggest thing we're working on now is the air permitting," Hecmanczuk said. "We notified VADEQ [Virginia Department of Environmental Quality] that we're asking for a permit. The toughest part of that is the NOX [oxygenated nitrogens or nitrous oxide] modeling and we're negotiating now on that. There is a new mandatory federal standard that we have to meet but there are several ways to meet it." While there is no guarantee the project will receive an environmental permit, Hecmanczuk said he anticipates it will be approved by August. "That [federal] standard is new. That is what has given us trouble in other locations. It gave us trouble in New River and it will be our challenge down here. We got through it recently and they [DEQ] just issued an air permit up there. That is the basis of what has taken so long to get this done," Hecmanczuk said. The company is also developing a facility in Dublin, Va., and operates similar plants in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina. The proposed plant would utilize 12 overhauled diesel engines from commercial trucks that would use a combination of the methane gas and fuel oil to generate power, Hecmanczuk said. It is designed to expand to accommodate 24 or more diesel engines if sufficient gas flows from the landfill. In the process, the methane gas would be piped in, water removed, it would be compressed to power the engines. The running engines produce the electricity which would be fed to a transformer and onto the grid operated by BVU. The permit process requires a public notice about the planned emissions, a public comment period and a minimum amount of time before the state agency makes its decision. TVA also requires an environmental review, but the state's findings will suffice, Hecmanczuk said. "We anticipate we can do that by the end of August. We anticipate TVA [approval] will come shortly after that and, at that point, we will be ready to build. That's the critical path," Hecmanczuk said. If that timetable is met, operations could begin in February 2014. The city currently receives no money from the landfill's methane gas which is burned or flared into the atmosphere. However the INGENCO proposal wasn't the city's first choice some 18 months ago. In October 2011, a divided City Council agreed to negotiate with a Los Angeles firm owned by billionaire financier T. Boone Pickens. That firm, Clean Energy Renewable Fuels, proposed to capture the methane, cleanse its impurities and sell it to natural gas pipeline firm Atmos Energy. Those negotiations broke down in February 2012 and the council agreed to go back to INGENCO, which was the other finalist, and a contract was completed in June. Mayor Jim Steele cast the lone vote for INGENCO back in 2011. "This will be more revenue for the city. This will help the landfill," Steele said. In other action, council members Ed Harlow and Catherine Brillhart were appointed to a subcommittee to help award federal Community Development Block Grant funding to area projects and agencies. The city will receive almost $263,000 but had requests totaling more than $384,000. The subcommittee is expected to complete its work before the April 23 meeting. dmcgee@bristolnews.com, (276) 645-2532 http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=28196292 |