Power plan is garbage

COEUR d'ALENE - This might sound weird, but someday the tossed out leftovers from dinner could end up lighting your house.

Someday soon.

After three years of planning, Kootenai County is about to join hundreds of municipalities across the country in generating electricity out of gas emitted by a landfill.

Not only will the project provide power for more than 1,000 local residents, county officials said, but it will also generate millions of dollars for Kootenai County.

"This project is so important," said Commissioner Rick Currie on Friday. "This is one of those things that makes you wake up at night and smile. I'm still waiting for somebody to find a negative."

The county Solid Waste Department has just signed a 20-year contract with Kootenai Electric Cooperative to pipe methane gas from the Fighting Creek landfill into a soon-to-be-built generator facility, which will transform the gas into electricity and feed it through power lines to KEC customers.

Landfill gas is ideal because it is a renewable source of energy, said KEC spokesman Larry Bryant. As more garbage comes in, more gas is produced.

The cost is also competitive to what the company pays the Bonneville Power Administration for electricity, he said.

"We've been looking for a renewable project for years," Bryant said. "And we found an opportunity right in our own backyard."

The Fighting Creek landfill has been exuding a possible energy source all along, Bryant said.

When organic materials like food wastes and yard clippings decompose, they produce gas, typically composed of methane, carbon dioxide and oxygen.

Once the generator facility is finished, complete with two generators and room for a third, it will produce enough electricity to power 1,200 residences in Kootenai County.

"Additionally as we develop and as our maximum capacity grows, we'll be serving 2,400 residences," Bryant predicted.

That could even expand to 3,000, he added, when a third generator is installed in about a decade.

KEC will compensate the county with $20 million over the length of the contract, said Roger Saterfiel, director of the Solid Waste Department.

"If we're receiving more revenue, we won't have to adjust our fees as often," Saterfiel said.

The bargain doesn't end there, he added.

The electric company will also cover the construction of the $7 million generator facility. Bryant said the company will fund the project through the federal Clean Renewable Energy Bonds program, which allows entities like KEC to borrow bonds with 0 percent interest.

"We can sell those bonds and receive very low interest financing as a result," Bryant said.

The county's end of the deal only requires providing an acre next to the landfill for the facility, and supplying the landfill gas through hundreds of vertical pipes.

The county has obtained a $205,000 state grant to expedite the collection of gas, Saterfiel said, which the county has previously burnt off in flares.

"Now that methane is money for us, it's important on how we collect it," Saterfiel said.

Construction on the generator facility could begin as soon as summer, and it's expected to be running within 18 to 24 months.

Saterfiel said he started considering the project three years ago. He toured gas generation sites across the country, including those in Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington.

"This wasn't something we went through over the last six months," he said.

One of the biggest issues he wanted to address was noise levels, he said, so as not to disturb Fighting Creek residents.

He boasted the contract restricts noise levels to 60 decibels within 200 feet of the facility, which KEC spokeswoman Erika Neff compared to the level of "a normal conversation between two people."

Another priority was ensuring the facility contains an educational area, Saterfiel said, where children can learn how methane gas is more consistent than intermittent energy sources like wind and solar.

"We really see this as an opportunity for education," he said.

For now, Saterfiel said, the county should focus on improving its recycling program.

If more of the landfill contains organic products than recyclable ones, he said, it will produce gas at a more rapid pace.

As for county residents, Bryant said, they just need to keep taking out the trash.

"As the landfill develops, it's going to develop more fuel," he said. "Just keep the garbage coming."