Landfill gas to help power Lamar w/ landfill methane production info

By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

LAMAR, Mo. — The flares at the Prairie View Landfill have been burning excess methane for years.

When Lamar City Administrator Lynn Calton looks at them, he thinks of one thing: “Dollar bills going up in the air.”

That loss is about to change. Lamar is preparing to harness the methane in the old Lamar Landfill and the newer Prairie View Landfill for production of electricity. A $6 million project that has been five years in the making is about to kick into high gear.

Two 1.6-megawatt generators have been purchased to generate electricity by burning methane. The lines that feed the flares will be diverted to the generators. The energy from the generators will go to a transformer, and from there it will be transmitted via a new power line to an electrical substation in Lamar. The power line alone will cost about $1 million.

In addition to trash from Lamar, the Prairie View Landfill receives trash from towns that include Springfield, Joplin and Carthage.

Said Calton: “This is the second largest landfill in the state. We love trash.”

A typical house in Lamar uses about 1,000 kilowatts of electricity a month. Calton said the generators would produce enough energy to power 2,300 houses. There are about 2,200 houses in Lamar.

“We’ll provide electricity to the whole town — at least the residential side,” he said. “It’s not enough to power the industrial side.”

But more power could be coming. As the Prairie View Landfill continues to grow, it will produce more methane. Calton said the plan is to add three generators in the future. That would produce a total of 9.6 megawatts of electricity.

“Right now, our peak load for both residential and industrial is 18 megawatts,” Calton said. “We will not be able to get all of our electricity from the landfill, but a lot of it. We’re hoping that it will keep electricity prices constant for Lamar.”

A spokesman for Allied/Republic Waste said the Prairie View Landfill could operate 25 to 30 years into the future, depending on the flow of waste to the landfill. That flow decreased this year when compared with last year.

Last year, the landfill received 2,300 tons of waste per day. That has dropped to 1,500 to 1,600 tons per day this year. Kurt Bodendorfer, general manager of Allied/Republic Waste, said the decline is a reflection of the state of the economy. Building construction, a major contributor to landfill waste, is down, he said. Another factor, he said, is the impact of recycling.

This is the third Allied/Republic Waste landfill in the state to convert methane into electrical energy. A landfill at Jefferson City provides energy for a state prison there, saving taxpayers $250,000 a year. A landfill near Kansas City is generating 40 percent of the electricity needed by a nearby concrete plant.