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City takes step closer to gas plant

Daniel J. Chacon, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 12, 2007 at midnight

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Denver is getting ready to turn trash into cash.

A plant that will convert landfill gases into energy and generate about $250,000 annually for the city for two decades received Mayor John Hickenlooper's blessing Wednesday during a ceremonial groundbreaking.

The gas-to-energy plant at the Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site has been under construction for about three weeks and is scheduled to be finished in December.

"Too often we get complaints about too much hot air associated with elected officials," Hickenlooper said.

"Here, I think we have a clear case where that hot air is indeed methane and it has the ability to be transformed into energy . . . to power 3,000 homes."

Denver is selling the methane as fuel to Houston-based Waste Management Inc., which will build, operate and maintain the 3.2-megawatt plant and sell the electricity to Xcel Energy.

"This plant is just a great example of what we can do when we work together toward a common goal," said Jay Herrmann, a regional vice president for Xcel.

The plant will help Xcel comply with a bill signed by Gov. Bill Ritter that requires utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020, double the 10 percent goal set by 2004's Amendment 37.

"The voters of Colorado, our customers, have told us that they want more power from renewable energy, and this is one more step toward our commitment to do that," Herrmann said.

Hickenlooper said Denver is going to prove the old adage that one person's trash is another person's treasure.

"This will be the only landfill gas-to-energy plant in the state of Colorado to date," he said.

"We'll provide the raw resource for the plant, the landfill gas, which is certainly the ultimate in turning lemons into lemonade," Hickenlooper said.

Steve Derus, plant manager, said the plant may be doubled in size in 10 to 15 years, producing 6.4 megawatts of electricity.

"This potentially could be a 50-year project," he said. "The landfill here has a life of 80 to 100 years, and as long as the trash that's coming in still creates methane in the organic waste, there will be gas to burn."

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