Municipal WTE

Lebanon, Tennessee, gasification plant opens

Nashville, Tennessee-based PHG Energy (PHGE) has opened its Lebanon, Tennessee, facility. The gasification plant, which cost the city $3.5 million, is designed to 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.

The wood and tires will be transported to a staging area where they will be ground down to a usable 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. Five percent of the waste turns into biochar, which will be sold for fertilizer.

Fiberight breaks ground on Maine facility

A groundbreaking ceremony was held at the site of a new waste processing facility in Hamden, Maine, on Oct. 26, 2016. According to local reports, construction began on the road and utilities leading to the facility, which will convert municipal solid waste into biofuels. Fiberight, Cantonsville, Maryland, is the technology provider on the project with the Municipal Review Committee, a nonprofit group representing the solid waste interests of nearly 187 Maine communities and solid waste districts.

Fiberight has secured final approval of its construction financing as it waits to settle an appeal on its permits from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP).

The appeal, filed by Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. (PERC), Orrington, Maine, and its majority owner and managing general partner, USA Energy Group, along with Exeter Agri-Energy (EAE), in the Kennebec County (Maine) Superior Court is seeking to reverse the MDEP issuing a solid waste and air emission licenses to Fiberight and MRC.

Nearly 110 communities have agreed to send their trash to Fiberight’s plant after their contract with PERC ends in 2018. Departing members will either stay with PERC or find other ways to deal with their trash, such as landfills.

The groundbreaking ceremony celebrated the beginning of the review committee’s end of the deal with Fiberight, which includes building the road to the proposed site and its infrastructure.

The estimated cost, $5 million, will be paid using money from the tipping fee stabilization fund, which has more than $20 million. Construction is expected to continue through January and resume again in April 2017 and the facility is slated to come online in April 2018.

Covanta Energy Corp., Morristown, New Jersey, is a financial backers of the project. Another financial backer has not been named.