Turning trash into power…
It’s an interesting concept of turning trash into power, as reported in the Blade, Trash-to-power plant proposed in Erie Twp though it sounds as if the company SunCrest Energy LLC doesn’t yet have buyers when you read the article.
When you do some research on SunCrest, their website is stated to be under construction but there are some other articles of interest out there that involve other Michigan counties. Such as Macomb County in 2007:
One new firm, Suncrest Energy, based in Washington Township, has affiliated with an Arkansas company that has run a trash-to-energy plant under a 4-year pilot program partially funded by U.S Department of Energy grant.
Marcello Iannucci, who founded Suncrest Energy earlier this year, said he believes it’s possible to establish a trash-to-energy plant in Macomb County within two years. He was dismayed to hear Granholm talk about a partnership with Swedish firms.
“We’ve been pushing this thing for months and … now all of a sudden she wants to bring Swedish technology to Michigan,” said Iannucci, who has run a successful home-building business for years. “We showed them all that this trash coming in, that we can turn it into energy with American technology and with workers in Macomb County who are hurting.”
An additional article from 2007 done by Associated Press has this quote:
“We sent a man to the moon in 1969, but we’re still burying our trash in a big hole,” the Free Press quoted Iannuci as saying.
Then about three weeks ago:
A start-up company has abandoned hopes of building a waste-to-energy plant in Macomb County, but now has its eyes on an undisclosed site in Michigan, the company announced last Friday.
SunCrest founder and President Marcello Iannucci didn’t elaborate on why the county is no longer the site, but did say that local politicians weren’t helpful in supporting one of the first such plants in the United States.
Appears with today’s news the location of the new county to attempt this in is now no longer undisclosed.
Toledo has it’s own way to covert trash to power.
Landfill Gas-to-Energy Project
Methane gas is a byproduct of decomposition of solid waste materials. New EPA regulations require landfills that reach a threshold size provide active extraction of landfill gas. Gas extraction wells have recently been installed at Hoffman Road Landfill and connected to a flare, which burns 24 hours a day. Control of the landfill gas is important for safety reasons as well as for protection of the ozone layer of the atmosphere. The landfill generates about 1,500 standard cubic feet of gas per minute. The Btu value of this gas is equivalent to the heating requirements of approximately 3,000 homes. Several options are currently being explored to put this gas to use as a fuel source for manufacturing and/or for City of Toledo operations to reduce energy costs.
This is what the community should invest in, instead of that coking plant
They’re already planning on building one of these things just south of me in St Lucie County Florida.
FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida county has grand plans to ditch its dump, generate electricity and help build roads — all by vaporizing garbage at temperatures hotter than the sun.
The $425 million facility expected to be built in St. Lucie County will use lightning-like plasma arcs to turn trash into gas and rock-like material. It will be the first such plant in the nation operating on such a massive scale and the largest in the world.
Supporters say the process is cleaner than traditional trash incineration, though skeptics question whether the technology can meet the lofty expectations.
The 100,000-square-foot plant, slated to be operational in two years, is expected to vaporize 3,000 tons of garbage a day. County officials estimate their entire landfill — 4.3 million tons of trash collected since 1978 — will be gone in 18 years.
No byproduct will go unused, according to Geoplasma, the Atlanta-based company building and paying for the plant.
Synthetic, combustible gas produced in the process will be used to run turbines to create about 120 megawatts of electricity that will be sold back to the grid. The facility will operate on about a third of the power it generates, free from outside electricity.
There’s more, but I just wanted to post this for interest.
Thank you.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:06 pmThank you, nice post Brian, I agree.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:43 pmI think if the “bus is missed” on this endeavour, by the time the right people get elected, it will be too expensive and out of reach.
Right now L.E.W. is on the cusp of 21st Century technology, and if this slips by without interest, you can just go ahead and shut down Toledo, because catching back up is going to be extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemly expensive.
Especially seeing certain fast food restaurants within the community provide free WiFi and Toledo proper dosen’t.
But that’s another chapter somewhere else entirely.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:03 pmlisa or anyone, ramon is not answering me about when he plans to quit lagrange village council. a voter
May 1st, 2008 at 9:35 pmIn an e-mail exchange a councilmember noted the methane outout from the landlfill locally and the exchange indicates that there is some thinking about the energy source.
“Landfill Gas-to-Energy Project
Methane gas is a byproduct of decomposition of solid waste materials. New EPA regulations require landfills that reach a threshold size provide active extraction of landfill gas. Gas extraction wells have recently been installed at Hoffman Road Landfill and connected to a flare, which burns 24 hours a day. Control of the landfill gas is important for safety reasons as well as for protection of the ozone layer of the atmosphere. The landfill generates about 1,500 standard cubic feet of gas per minute. The Btu value of this gas is equivalent to the heating requirements of approximately 3,000 homes. Several options are currently being explored to put this gas to use as a fuel source for manufacturing and/or for City of Toledo operations to reduce energy costs.”
http://www.ci.toledo.oh.us/Departments/PublicService/DivisionofSolidWaste/HoffmanLandfill/tabid/224/Default.aspx
Not the same as refuse to fuel, but a start, none the less
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:57 amLet’s hope that they do better than the trash burning power plant that Columbus some years back. It turned into a white elephant that makes the Erie Street Market look like a success story.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 amIt sounds like a promising idea that would take care of two problems at once.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:24 pmAnother endeavour is the transportation opportunities being discussed. Check out today’s Blade. Intermodal rail yards are being built all around us. We missed the one that they wanted to build in Erie Twnshp. That one would have connected us to the Canadian National RR, the only rail road that goes coast to coast, Canada to Mexico. If we miss this again, we will be screwed. An intermodal yard would generate so many related opportunities, opportunities that would generate good things for all! We have two super hwys in the area, the seaway, great rail roads, Toledo Express (Burlinton)and a great work force. Toledo has been promoted as a transportation hub
May 4th, 2008 at 12:33 pmfor years. Why can’t we get it done?!?
Hey — this company is building w/ a investor – not Michigan money—————FINALLY!!!!
May 9th, 2008 at 10:46 amEPA QUOTES GASIFICATION IS CLEANER THAN NATURAL GAS!!!
May 9th, 2008 at 10:48 amEPA QUOTES METHANE IS 21 MORE TIMES WORSE FOR THE ATMOSPHERE THAN CO2 — LANDFILLS ONLY CAPTURE 70% – SO THE 30% IS RELEASED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE!!!
WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO LANDFILL — HATS OFF TO SUNCREST AND ERIE// HELPING MICHIGAN’S ENVIRONMENT AND NOT TO MENTION JOBS!!!
May 9th, 2008 at 10:52 amALL SUNCREST NEEDS IS SOMEONE TO PURCHASE THEIR POWER —- I SAY MICHIGAN HELP THEM!!!
May 9th, 2008 at 10:53 amUh oh. Where is Lisa when you need her. A spammer is loose.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:56 amWhat are the implications of the furnace and the air quality? This should be built in a heavy industrial area not farm fields!
If this is such a great idea why isn’t BFI or Allied Waste or all the other land fill owners jumping on the money making band wagon???
May 12th, 2008 at 8:54 pmWhat are the implications of the furnace and the air quality? This should be built in a heavy industrial area not farm fields!
If this is such a great idea why isn’t BFI or Allied Waste or all the other land fill owners jumping on the money making band wagon???
Also, this company can’t even build a web site let alone a power plant!
May 12th, 2008 at 8:57 pmMEG?
Just to give you an idea of what is involved, check this out.
What heat the plasma system is capable of is hotter than the surface of the sun, and all which comes into contact vaporizes, including the smoke.
In layman’s terms, of course.
May 12th, 2008 at 9:01 pm