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Energy Startup Hopes For Cash From Trash

CHRISTIANSBURG, VA (AP) - A green energy company believes it can make a little money for itself and help local government and the environment by making electricity from landfill gas.

The lease has been signed for Green KW Energy to install a generator fueled only by the gas rising from within the Mid-County Landfill off Cinnabar Road in Christiansburg.

The Montgomery Regional Solid Waste Authority attracted Green KW after an investigation revealed the closed landfill, holding 1 million tons of household and commercial waste deposited mostly during the 1980s and 1990s, will ooze a naturally occurring gaseous mixture containing flammable methane for the next 15 years.

The authority currently burns the methane to keep it from being released as an agent of global climate change.

But that’s old technology.

At a cost of $350,000 to $400,000, Green KW plans to install a methane-fired engine and generator atop the landfill rated to produce 265 kilowatts of electricity. That’s enough to power about 100 homes.

Company and utility officials think there might be enough gas for a second generator of similar size.

The Green KW venture will be a small renewable energy project within the well-established landfill gas-to-electricity arena.

The Environmental Protection Agency said 456 such projects operate in the United States, 20 of them in Virginia.

Many of the existing Virginia project are between four and more than 20 times as productive as the one being proposed in Christiansburg, because they are situated on larger landfills burping out more gas.

But Steven Cox, the president of Green KW and a professor of engineering at Virginia Tech, said the object is not just profit - though profit is expected during the first year of operation.

The Green KW team, with scientific and business backgrounds but no track record in alternative energy, is starting out with a small, challenging first project before pursuing larger ventures at other landfills and at sewage treatment plants, which produce gas, too.

Cox said he has taken his students to visit many landfills. Each time, he has noticed a blazing gas flare burning off the landfill gas.

“ You see the flare and you ask, ‘Can’t something better be done with this?’” he said.

“ No, we’ve tried,” he was told over and over.

But then he visited a Kentucky landfill with its own 2.4 megawatt electrical generator with a single operator.

“ That was the motivator,” he said.

The company was incorporated in November 2007 and consists of Cox, who will operate the plant on a part-time basis; Cox’s wife, Carrie, also an engineer; Tech engineering professor John Novak; Virginia Military Institute engineering professor Charles Bott; and Bott’s wife, Caroline, a public administrator with experience in government and not-for-profit enterprises.

Green KW has set aside $10,000 for the authority if its efforts fall short.

But, assuming electrical generation gets under way as planned later this year, it will pay the authority a fraction of the money it receives for the electricity it sells.

In addition, the authority and Green KW both expect to earn salable, green-energy credits.

The authority expects its direct payments to reach at least $15,000 a year and to reserve the money for environmental education and training, said Alan Cummins, executive director.

He said he did not know of any sights, smells or sounds from the project that will be offensive to residents, and key players expect the Department of Environmental Quality to grant the necessary permits.

“ This whole project, I see it as a win-win,” Cummins said. “A win, win, win.”

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