5.6. & 5.7. SR 09-21-2009 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Miller, Jessica From: Hanson, Wayne GREMG [WHANSON@GREnergy.com] Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 9:12 AM To: Miller, Jessica Cc: Johnson, Lori Subject: FW: Future of Elk River Power Plant I am OK with you including this in the packet for the city council. From: Hanson, Wayne GRE/MG Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 3:37 PM To: 'mayorer@q.com'; 'nick.zerwas@ci.elk-river.mn.us'; 'iwgump@yahoo.com'; 'westgaard@nsatel.net'; 'pmotin@aol.com' Cc: Rebecca Haug (rhaug@ci.elk-river.mn.us); Lori Johnson (Ijohnson@ci.elk-river.mn.us) Subject: Future of Elk River Power Plant I am providing this additional information to support the City Council decision regarding the expansion of the Elk River landfill. At the August 17 City Council meeting I voiced the importance of retaining the Elk River landfill for receiving rejected materials from the Elk River RDF processing plant. The processing plant converts 80 to 85 percent of the municipal solid waste (MSW) received into fuel for the Elk River power plant. The rejected material from the processing plant averages 70,000 tons a year and has been disposed of in the Elk River landfill for the past 20 years. If the Elk River landfill does not receive the requested expansion and closes, the additional transportation cost to the processing plant for the disposal of this material at the next closest landfill will be about $15/ton or an additional $1 million per year. This additional expense could be a fatal blow to the operation of the processing plant and the Elk River power plant. GRE has also been working closely with Waste Management (WM) to supply the needed MSW to the project. WM clearly understands the importance to the City and also the state of Minnesota to keep the Elk River power plant operating. WM has historically been the supplier of the largest quantity of MSW to this project and they have agreed to continue to support the project at this same level in the future. Without this support from WM, the project clearly will not have sufficient MSW to fuel the Elk River power plant and keep the project viable. The Elk River power plant has continued to operate these past 20 years only because of the availability of refuse derived fuel produced at the Elk River processing plant. GRE has studied other options to fuel the power plant but have been unsuccessful in finding a fuel of sufficient quantity that is priced low enough to keep the facility financially viable. Therefore, if RDF from the Elk River processing plant is not available in the future the project will shut down. The economic impact to the Elk River community will be very significant if this project goes away. Currently, over a $1 million per year in property taxes are paid between the Elk River power plant and the processing plant. These facilities employ over 100 employees, many who live in the Elk River area and support the local economy. The facilities annually infuse into the area economy over $18 million for other operating and maintenance expenses. The Elk River power plant also supports the region by producing reliable, low cost renewable energy. As GRE takes over the ownership and operation of the Elk River processing facility we see many opportunities to provide additional support for the Elk River community from this facility. We are looking at new technologies to improve recycling efficiencies and help solve other waste challenges such as the management of source separated organics from the Elk River area. We are taking a serious look at installing an anaerobic digester as an odorless and effective method to convert organics to electricity. We have also studied ways to more efficiently recover the energy from the fuel in the Elk River power plant. Along this line we have done an engineering study for the installation of a district heating system to take waste heat from the Elk River power plant and heat the Elk River school buildings. This improves the efficiency of the power plant, reduces school district expenses and supports the Energy City program. All these opportunities and benefits may be lost if the landfill expansion is not supported by the City Council and the closing of the Elk River landfill impacts the economic viability of the Elk River power plant and processing plant. Please consider these factors in your decision on the Elk River landfill expansion. If you have any questions, please feel free to call me at 763-445-5818. W N~•y~tas. Director, MN Generation Great River Energy 09/18/2009