Agenda - Council - 03/24/1981 - Laserfiche WebLink

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As a direct result of the efforts of Anoka County and because of the apparent potential source of alternative fuel production in this metropolitan area, Anoka County has received several letters of support from Federal, State and local officials towards this effort. At the time of this writing, the staff of the County Administration Office is in the process of preparing a request for proposal for feasibility studies from various engineering firms throughout the Country. It is the plan of Anoka County to conduct an engineering feasibility study for landfill gas recovery at the afore-referenced landfill during the Spring of 1981. Depending on the results of this effort, the County plans to solicit operational contracts for a landfill gas recovery and utilization system during the Summer and Fall of 1981. LANDFILL GAS RECOVERY - ALTERNATIVE CONSIDERATION FOR "RESOURCE RECOVERY" The metropolitan counties of the Twin Cities area have for some years now been involved in a major study effort relative to the future of solid waste mana§ement, and more specifically, resource recovery systems for the metropolitan area for the future.' The principal focus for resource recovery planning efforts has centered around the technology of shredding municipal solid waste into refuse derived fuel (RDF) and utilizing the fuel in boilers for steam generation. The RDF/steam generation technology has been utilized in numerous applications around the Country to varying levels of success. The capital costs of such facilities, depending on size, location and proximity to markets, vary from 50 to 250 million dollars. According to the National Center for Resource Recovery, the Sargus, Massachucetts steam generation facility is the only one which is currently successful from an economic perspective. This is made possible only because of a $13.00/ton drop charge and a municipally owned power plant as .the single market. This compares to a $5.00/ton average drop charge existing in the Twin Cities metro area. Numerous technological problems exist in these .type of facilities and given the extremely high capital costs, the systems dictate a very high level of public'subsidy in the operational economic matrix. Reiterating the purpose of this "white paper", the Anoka County Board of Commissioners is calling for public consideration of landfill gas recovery as a possible aternative or adjunct to any resource recovery system which is developed in this Metropolitan area. Following the model of the CID Landfill at Calumet, Illinois, servicing the Chicago area (see Attachment "A"), it appears on the surface that a very viable alternative to a major resource recovery effort might well be the establishment of a large scale (300- 400 acres) sanitary landfill specifically designed and constructed for the purpose of recovering and utilizing methane gas. If landfilling and gas extraction can in fact be considered as an alternative to "Resource Recovery" in the traditional definition of the term, it appears to the Anoka County Board that the Capital Costs are minimal in comparison with a much faster economic payback. -5-