Portland company could be first U.S. food waste to energy plant
13 Dec 2010
by: James Mayer, The Oregonian
Those fries you don’t finish at the local burger joint could become electricity under a franchise granted by Metro this week.
Columbia Biogas plans to build a facility that will use anaerobic digestion to transform commercial food waste into methane gas that will run engines to generate electricity.
Although common in Europe, the proposed facility on Northeast Columbia Boulevard is on track to be the first of its kind in American, according to company President John McKinney.
The plant will also produce a fiber soil additive, liquid fertilizer, fairly clean water and heat as by products.
“We’re capturing the benefits of food waste that would otherwise be hauled long distances to a landfill,” McKinney said.
The plant, to be located on 11 acres west of the Colwood Golf Course that backs up to the Columbia Slough, is expected to take 194,000 tons per year of solid and liquid food waste from commercial and industrial sources. It won’t take residential food waste, or yard debris.
Through an enclosed fermentation process using bacteria, the plant is expected to produce about 5 kilowatts of electricity per day, enough to power about 5,000 homes.
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