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Richard Piatt ReportingSomething is flowing into Murray from the Salt Lake County landfill - electricity. The methane gas from buried garbage is being transformed.
In the no-man's land at the Salt Lake County landfill, they're turning a liability into an asset. Three generators are using landfill gas to crank out enough energy to power 2,500 homes in Murray.
Curtis Ranger, DTE Biomass Energy: "This project you're looking at will be here a long time, two or three decades. We'll be harvesting energy that's coming out of that landfill."
Rotting garbage generates methane gas, vented through wells underground. The gas is sucked out with a blower, filtered, and then used to power a generator. The generator converts that energy into electricity that is transmitted to Murray's power company.
Gary Merrill, Murray City Power: "This is very cost-effective for us. And our next marginal option is a coal-fired plant."
This gas recovery system produces three megawatts of energy a year. That's the same as more than 99-thousand barrels of oil; 12-thousand acres of trees. All it took to get it, was to tap into it.
Let's put it this way: if all that gas generated by that landfill wasn't converted into electricity in the three machines, it would instead be burnt off in a giant flame at a smokestack, 12-hundred cubic feet of gas every minute.
The simplicity of the system has caught the eye of 400 other cities across the nation. All use systems similar to this one.
Rick Covell, Landfill Energy Systems: "All we did was take this caterpillar engine, designed to run on landfill gas, change a couple components in it, and give it a new fuel source."
Eventually, even more landfill gas will get converted to electricity, partly because it's possible. Eventually, it may be an essential source of energy. The landfill gas is a cheaper way to provide energy and will help Murray City power offset some of the more expensive aspects of generating electricity.
