TRASH TO TREASURE L.A. LANDFILL GAS TO FUEL POWER PLANT.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

LAKE VIEW TERRACE - Los Angeles will flip the switch today on the largest microturbine power plant in the world lighted by gas from rotting garbage.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is scheduled to fire 50 microturbines from waste methane gas at the Lopez Canyon Landfill. The resulting electricity will be enough to power 1,500 homes.

DWP officials said this is the largest array of microturbines in the world and the first biomass project of its kind in Los Angeles.

``The beauty of this new technology is you can string a number of turbines together, or use them individually,'' said DWP Strategic Planning Director Angelina Galetiva. ``This is the future of power generation.''

The $4 million project, according to officials, has another major benefit: By burning gas now flared into the air, each low-emission high-tech turbine will cut 10,000 pounds of nitrogen oxide - about 500 cars worth of pollution - each year.

If successful, the Lake View Terrace facility will serve as a gas-recycling model for up to 11 other dumps across Los Angeles that produce enough garbage gas to fuel 1,000 microturbines.

``I think it's great,'' said Tim Carmichael, executive director of the Los-Angeles based Clean Air Coalition, who will join city, DWP and air quality officials in a public ceremony today.

``We need to look at all sorts of opportunities to generate power with limited-to-zero air pollution. Landfills supply lost gas to the air and more and more utilities are seeing the light.''

In building a biomass generating system, the DWP follows the lead of Burbank, which last month launched the nation's first microturbine power plant to harness methane gas produced by decomposing rubbish.

Funds to build the Lopez Canyon project come from a DWP commitment with regional air quality regulators to spend $14 million on clean-air projects in exchange for the right to exceed state air pollution limits while producing power for California's tight energy market. The DWP has yet to surpass those limits, officials say.

``This project is an example of how we as regulators are able to balance air quality requirements with economic needs during challenging times,'' William Burks, chairman of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said in a statement.

The 400-acre Lopez Canyon dump, closed early in 1996 because of pressure from the community, is now a covered glade favored by coyotes, bobcats and other wildlife.

But underneath its vegetative cap lies 16 million tons of rotting fish heads, apple cores and other commercial and household garbage that spews 6,500 cubic feet of methane each minute, Los Angeles sanitation officials say.

Half that gas now powers a 6-megawatt generator owned by a Minnesota company that sells power for Southern California Edison Co. Until today, the other half was simply burned, its leftover contaminants contributing to local smog.

The other half is available for biomass energy production, of which 15 percent will be initially used to light people's homes. When the Lopez Canyon dump runs out of gas in 30 to 40 years, the microturbines can simply be moved to another site, DWP officials say.

It's the hottest clean-air technology, said Doug Walters, Lopez Canyon site engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation. ``Microturbines are (even) being considered by community colleges in Los Angeles.''

The DWP microturbines, developed by Capstone Turbine Corp. in Chatsworth, are mostly used to power buildings, energy-efficient vehicles and oil rigs. They run on a variety of liquid and gas fuels and produce about one-tenth of the NOx pollution as burning methane.

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photo, map

Photo:

Microturbines atop Lopez Canyon Landfill will make enough electricity for 1,500 homes.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

Map: Microturbine dump-gas powered plant