Power plants: landfill turns wood into electricity.Power plants Landfill turns wood into electricity When is your garbage not your garbage? When it's recycled into fuel which provides the power to heat your home or workplace. At Bradley Landfill and Recycling Center in Sun Valley, two innovative methods are being used to successfully transform garbage into alternative fuels. Since it opened for business a year ago, Bradley's woodwaste recycling plant has processed more than 20,000 tons of waste. Yard waste, tree trimmings, wood pallets, construction and demolition debris and movie set materials are grist for the recycling mill -- a huge yellow tub grinder Grinder A slang term for a person who works in the investment industry and makes small amounts of money at a time on small investments, over and over again. Notes: that looks like a food processor on steroids steroids, class of lipids having a particular molecular ring structure called the cyclopentanoperhydro-phenanthrene ring system. Steroids differ from one another in the structure of various side chains and additional rings. . The tub grinder processes the woodwaste into uniform four-inch shreds. After the wood is processed, it is loaded into trucks and hauled to the San Joaquin Valley Noun 1. San Joaquin Valley - a vast valley in central California known for its rich farmland Calif., California, Golden State, CA - a state in the western United States on the Pacific; the 3rd largest state; known for earthquakes . There it is burned in a fully regulated cogeneration power plant, where it provides electricity to approximately 4,500 homes per day. "More than 25 percent of the waste in the average landfill comes from wood and yard waste," says Bradley's General Manager Greg Loughnane. "Our woodwaste recycling plant keeps the equivalent of 6,000 truckloads of waste per year out of the landfill. By using the woodwaste in place of oil to generate electric power, we are saving 30,000 barrels of oil a year as well." But there is more to garbage than just a few thousand truckloads of wood. As waste of any kind decomposes, it generates methane gas. Current environmental regulations dictate that this gas must be recovered and processed in order to avoid air pollution problems. In many landfills, the recovered gas is flared (burned off). However, at Bradley Landfill, an elaborate gas recovery and processing plant turns two million cubic feet of gas per day into electric power. A total of 99 gas recovery wells are located throughout the landfill. These wells are tied together by a system of pipes leading to a central collection and processing plant. The reclaimed gas is fed through a waterwash scrubber and into a compressor compressor, machine that decreases the volume of air or other gas by the application of pressure. Compressor types range from the simple hand pump and the piston-equipped compressor used to inflate tires to machines that use a rotating, bladed element to achieve . It is then piped directly to two commercial power plants. At the power plants, the landfill gas is blended with natural gas to attain the desired heating value The heating value or calorific value of a substance, usually a fuel or food, is the amount of heat released during the combustion of a specified amount of it. The calorific value is a characteristic for each substance. for use in boilers which use steam turbines Steam turbine A machine for generating mechanical power in rotary motion from the energy of steam at temperature and pressure above that of an available sink. By far the most widely used and most powerful turbines are those driven by steam. to produce electricity. Alternatively, it may be burned directly in internal combustion engines Internal combustion engine A prime mover, the fuel for which is burned within the engine, as contrasted to a steam engine, for example, in which fuel is burned in a separate furnace. which power the generators to produce electricity. Another 55,000 barrels of oil per year are saved through this process. "A properly run landfill today provides many opportunities for innovation," says Loughnane. "Our intention is to use the best technology available to benefit the environment while providing an important service to the community." PHOTO : Methane gas gnerated by decomposing wood waste is reclaimed at landfill and piped to power plants to produce electricity. Paula Becker is director of public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most for Waste Management in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . |
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