CNHI News Service Landfill turns trash into cash

Photos

Globe/David Stonner Randy Haggard, superintendent of the Newton-McDonald County Landfill methane-powered electrical generation project, discusses a mechanical matter with Art Boyt, a professor and renewable energy researcher at Crowder College. FOR NEWS. David Stonner/Joplin Globe

Globe/David Stonner Engineer Clyde Longan adjusts a linkage on the 6,000 horsepower, 25 million BTU methane gas boiler used to generate electricity at the Newton-McDonald County Landfill project. FOR NEWS. David Stonner/Joplin Globe

Globe/David Stonner Haggard climbs to the top of the 6,000 horsepower 25 million BTU methane boiler to open steam valve to start electrical generation. FOR NEWS. David Stonner/Joplin Globe

Globe/David Stonner Haggard shows a copper wire cable used to transfer generated electricity to be sold to power companies. A bundle of twelve cables is used to get the electricity to the power grid for purchase. FOR NEWS. David Stonner/Joplin Globe

Haggard said the idea struck him as he was watching the flame used at the site to burn off excess methane caused by waste decomposition.

NEOSHO, Mo. — On a cool, foggy morning, Randy Haggard fires up a massive boiler, so large that it wouldn’t fit in the living room of many homes.
The boiler sits inside a shack at the Newton-McDonald County Landfill.
Within moments, the shack is filled with a whine as pressure rises in the boiler, creating steam that cranks a turbine to a 525-kilowatt generator. The electricity will be pushed onto Empire District Electric Co.’s grid — the first time electricity will be provided to the Joplin utility from a landfill methane project, company spokeswoman Amy Bass said.
Haggard said the idea struck him as he was watching the flame used at the site to burn off excess methane caused by the decomposition of waste at the landfill.
“There was a lot of energy just burning off into the atmosphere,” said Clyde Longan, who installed and maintains the boiler.
The biggest challenge for Haggard was finding a boiler big enough to produce a large volume of steam, but not so large that it would need more methane than the landfill could produce.
Half a continent away, Haggard found what he was looking for. An old greenhouse in Amherst, Mass., was selling a 600-horsepower North American boiler. Haggard went to inspect the behemoth in December 2004 and arranged for it to be shipped to Newton County. He and Longan pulled the project together.
Generating electricity from methane is not unique to the Newton-McDonald County Landfill. Other operations are using landfill methane to heat schools and businesses, or selling the power generated by the rotting coffee grounds, newspapers and other materials.
Lamar hopes to have a landfill system up and running by the end of the year that would generate revenue for the city.
“It’s something that most landfills, if it’s not already on their plate, are considering it,” said, Jim Hull, solid waste management program director for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
‘Junkyard wars’
For now, the system at the Newton-McDonald Landfill is being given a test run. It began generating electricity onto the grid on Dec. 20, but it was shut down because of a cooling problem, Haggard said. Within two weeks, he hopes the “junkyard wars” creation will be providing electricity to Empire District’s grid.
Haggard predicts that the sale of electricity will pay for the $150,000 in setup costs within a year of permanently going on line. The limited setup costs are the result of the shoestring budget on which the landfill operates, Haggard said.
“When you’re broke, you do things the poor man’s way,” he said.
Additional money generated from the sale of electricity will go toward covering the maintenance costs incurred from closing the landfill, which operated from 1974 to 1997.
Frank Dolan, staff engineer for the DNR, praised the project and the initiative of the people involved.
“It’s quite incredible,” he said. “There is no special funding, no subsidy they are getting on this. They went out (with) just the initiative of the landfill board and manager, and they did it. It’s a credit to every member of the landfill board.”
Going bigger
But if the Newton-McDonald County Landfill did it on a shoestring budget, the city of Lamar is going big.
The Prairie View Regional Waste Facility, north of Lamar on Route DD, is building three 1.6-megawatt generators with an estimated construction cost of $5 million, said City Administrator Lynn Calton.
The electricity is to be sold to the city’s electric cooperative, the Missouri Public Energy Pool.
Calton estimated that the sale of electricity from methane generated at the Prairie View site will bring in nearly $200,000 a year.
Calton said he the city is optimistic that the project will be completed and producing electricity within the year. The city still is negotiating purchasing methane from Allied Waste Industries, the company that runs the largest section of the landfill.
Not every landfill can produce methane in the quantity needed to generate electricity. The former landfill in Joplin is too old and too small, said Mary Anne Phillips, city recycling coordinator.
She said the city considered converting methane to electricity to help heat the nearby wastewater-treatment plant, but after consulting with Kansas City-based civil engineers, officials decided that the project would not be feasible.

Adam Bednar writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.