Every time a ton of trash disappears into a Michigan landfill, Bill Chynoweth and Jim Schuur feel a pang of regret.
Because in that ton of trash is the energy eqivalent of half a ton or more of coal -- and that trash could be gasified in a virtually pollution-free system to produce energy and steam, and reduce the amount of land devoted to trash burial.
Chynoweth's Troy-based Resource Management Partners and Schuur's Troy-based Renovare Energy Inc. and Aarell Co. are working together to convince state environmental officials, local politicians, utilities and trash disposal giants like Waste Management that their concept is sound.
Their first installation will soon rise at a commercial turkey farm near Howard City in West Michigan. Through United States Department of Agriculture grants and loans, turkey waste at Sietsema Farms will be turned into 500 kilowatts of electricity and 8,500 pounds an hour of steam, saving the farm $300,000 a year in landfill costs.
Other installations are on the drawing boards for Dutton, near Grand Rapids, for a landfill near Alpena in the northeast Lower Peninsula, and for a horse racing track in Florida.
Resource Management's waste-to-energy system is different than traditional trash incineration, which produces toxic air emissions and ash.
Gasification instead uses a "pilot light" of natural gas or propane to heat up trash to the point where most of it is transformed into a gas -- in a chamber where the oxygen is sucked out, so that it does not burst into flame. Little by little air (and its oxygen) is introduced into the gas until combustion occurs. However, the combustion never reaches the temperatures that create toxins like oxides of sulfur and oxides of nitrogen. Once the gasification starts up, it's self-sustaining, requiring only a constant and reliable stream of solid waste.
(For an example of how gasification works, look closely at your next campfire. Notice how the flame never quite touches the wood? That gap between the wood and the flame is the hot gas that has not yet touched enough oxygen to create flame.)
Chynoweth said the system that would create the least disruption to the current trash hauling system would be to build the gasification plants at landfills. That way the trash trucks still go to the same place -- but instead of simply burying the trash, energy is created.
Also, Chynoweth and Schuur are proposing "mining" the already buried trash back out of landfills as a fuel source. That would also help eliminate worries about landfills leaking toxic materials into surrounding groundwater. Chynoweth said trash -- formally, Type 2 Municipal Solid Waste -- creates about 6,500 BTUs per pound, vs. 11,000 to 13,500 BTUs per pound for Eastern coal and 9,000 BTUs per pound for Western coal.
Each gasification plant would also create between 20 and 50 permanent jobs, depending on its size.
Chynoweth said the technology behind gasification plants is proven and has been used for 30 years, and once permits are obtained the plants take about a year to build.
For more information, e-mail Chynoweth at chynowethb@comcast.net.
E-Mail Story
Print Story
