Example
The Fauquier County Board of Supervisors is expected shortly to enter into a public private partnership to have a company invest more than $50 million in a biomass facility at the County landfill which will take all the incoming MSW of approximately 250 tons daily and all the C&D which is not being recycled, approximately 50 tons daily and convert it initially into 12 MW of electricity. This net production from the plant will be enough to power all the homes in Warrenton and a large part of the rest of the County.
The conversion technology will be plasma gasification that produces a syngas which is then generated into electricity for distributed generation. Eventually, the plant will use some of the syngas and make a liquid transportation fuel for the school buses nd public safety vehicles.
The plant should not require a single ounce of fossil fuels. Methane is being captured at the landfill and this landfill gas will power the plant until it can generate enough heat and steam in its internal process to power itself. There will still be 12 MW which will be exported to the grid located at the landfill.
There is additional feedstock available for the plant. There are two cells of old MSW from years of landfill burial which could be mined. There are agricultural residues such as corn stover as well as tree clippings and other woody biomass which could be gathered up and used if the cost is economical.
There is also the possibility of separately converting “wet” wastes such as animal manures and sewer sludge to produce a biogas which can be used to power the plant or be sold separately. Conversion technologies, such as anaerobic digestion, for this process are well proven and companies are willing finance, build and operate a ‘wet’ waste to biogas plant which could be sited adjacent to the main biomass plant.
Greenhouse gas emissions will be eliminated by no longer burying the trash and this will amount to an estimated 82,000 tons per year. Also, by using 12 MW of clean energy to replace 12 MW of fossil fuel derived energy will avoid another 36,000 tons of GHG.
The avoidance or elimination of all this GHG will reduce the carbon footprint of Fauquier County by about 8% annually. This far surpasses the statewide goal in Virginia of not exceeding 2000 GHG levels by 2025.
The model developed for Warrenton/Fauquier, which can be used as a template for communities around the world, has been featured on the BBC as well as national and international print media. As Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina said when Mr. Fitch testified before the Senate Energy Committee in February 2007, “this is a novel and innovative approach which we need to support because it decentralizes energy production and thereby provides greater energy security for our country.
