Lebanon, Tennessee, gasification plant opens

Nashville, Tennessee-based PHG Energy (PHGE) has opened its Lebanon, Tennessee facility, a report by News Channel 5 Network says. The gasification plant will save 16 million pounds of waste every year.

The company signed a contract with the city in 2015 to build the plant, which will use scrap wood, tires and sewer sludge from Wilson County, Tennessee, and within a 20-mile area, because the city’s landfill is less than a decade away from capacity, the report says.

According to the report, the wood and tires will be transported to a staging area where they will be ground down to a useable size. From there, the material is sent to the plant. A series of chemical processes converts 95 percent of the waste into hot water, which will go to the wastewater treatment plant next door to the gasification plant. The process will create up to 300 kilowatts of electricity, which will be used to run both the gasification plant and the wastewater treatment plant.

The plant will convert up to 64 tons per day of waste into fuel gas. According to the report, five percent of the waste turns into bio-char, which will be sold to local farmer for fertilizer. Clean Energy Technologies Inc., Costa Mesa, California, provided the equipment for the plant.

The plant cost the city $3.5 million to build, with a $250,000 matching funds grant from the Clean Tennessee Energy Grant program to assist with the construction.