Leonard Gill kept the work going on his new $3 million methane plant until January. Then the weather just got too cold. If all goes as planned, he"ll finish it next summer, after the nearby Siouxland Ethanol plant begins production. The two projects are closely linked.
The methane gas generated by garbage decaying deep beneath the surface at Gill"s landfill in Jackson, Neb., will be captured and pushed by a giant compressor more than a mile down the road to the ethanol plant. There, it will be used both to flame off the odorous gases from the air and to cook the corn mash which produces the ethanol, a form of alcohol that is added to gasoline.
The methane - which is about 50 percent natural gas and 50 percent carbon dioxide - will provide about a quarter of the energy needed by the ethanol plant. By comparison, natural gas delivered by MidAmerican Energy is about 99 percent pure.
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Gill has agreed to sell the methane to Siouxland Ethanol at a per-BTU price that is 25 percent under the price the ethanol plant pays for its natural gas, giving investors an edge over other ethanol plants. Both prices will fluctuate.
Nearly ready
Gill began digging the 39 methane gas collector wells in a 30-acre well field last fall, drilling 70 to 100 feet into garbage dumped there between one and five years ago.
At the same time, workers were connecting the wells with 10-inch pipe. That network of pipes is tied to a collector pipe and the pipe through which the gas will travel down the road to Siouxland Ethanol.
Gill said that when work stopped, all the wells were finished and three-quarters of the pipe was laid.
Jerry Steffen, of Steffen Engineering & Testing Inc., of Sioux City, the engineering firm for the project, said the holdup will be the delivery of two 350-horsepower compressors. One will create a vacuum in the pipe, the other a "push" for the gas.
Gill signed the contract for them in October with an Oklahoma company, Steffen said, and was given a 45- to 50-week delivery date. He attributed the long wait to the current big demand for gas pumps in general. Gill noted, in a separate interview, that the intense demand is worldwide.
"We"re trying to get it in June," Steffen said. May would be the earliest possible date, he added.
More than garbage
The methane plant will have to wait at least a year longer for another product it wants - the "dewatered" sludge from Sioux City"s wastewater treatment plant.
The plant is under an extensive renovation and will not begin producing the dewatered sludge for about a year, Steffen said.
The bacteria-rich sludge will come from anaerobic digesters at the renovated plant. Currently the more watery sludge it produces is spread on fields as fertilizer.
Steffen said garbage alone will produce anywhere from 500 to 1,200 cubic feet of methane per minute and the sludge will boost that production.
The well collector system will also be capturing the methane produced by Sioux City"s yard waste.
Normally, it"s illegal in Nebraska to combine yard waste with household garbage put in a landfill. But Gill got the Unicameral to change that for facilities that will turn the mix into useable energy. He started accepting the yard waste on Oct. 2.
The organic nature of the grass clippings and other plant material gives an additional boost to well field"s methane production.
"It"s an opportunity"
The minute they started thinking about putting the ethanol plant in here is when we started thinking about (the methane plant,)" Gill said. Siouxland Ethanol had originally identified another site, but neighbors protested and it found the land near Jackson.
Gill started researching methane production and visiting up-and-running operations before going ahead with his own
"It"s kind of a lengthy process," he said, looking back. And, going forward, he figures it could take five years to make a return on his investment.
Still, he is spreading the faith. Steffen said he and Gill recently met with the manager of the landfill in Sioux Falls, where the methane produced by the garbage is burned off to meet emission requirements.
Steffen said that plant is in negotiations with an ethanol plant that is 10 or 11 miles away, trying to establish a beneficial use for the now-wasted gas.
He said the landfill at Omaha has been capturing its methane for years. In an agreement with the Omaha Public Power District, the methane is fed to gas powered electrical generators on-site and the resulting electricity is put onto the supply grid.
