This is the view of Swedish Biogas, who despite stating that an estimated $4 million of funding was still needed for the second phase of the Flint Biogas Plant, the company says that its is confident that this money will be secured by the end of July this year.
That means that the residents of Flint will eventually benefit from a projected net saving to the cityies fund, from the plant of more than $1 million a year.
This is a highly forward thinking project, so we have added an excerpt from their news release below. Please visit the original site by clicking on the link provided below the excerpt:
“What we want to do is bring private financing to the city through Swedish Biogas and, in return, the city will use the savings to pay off the loan and the assets will eventually become the city’s and we’ll share in the operation and savings in the plant,” said Thomas Guise, chief executive officer of Swedish Biogas International LLC.Guise couldn’t comment on the details of where the investment is coming from, stating they had hoped the funds would have been secured in December.
The lagging economy has made financing a challenge, but Swedish Swedish Biogas International International and the city have a model to show there is a profit, he said.
“Our goal is to have our corporate headquarters and our lab here and then not only have the plant make money, but importantly, we want to have a demonstration plant,” he said. “We need to have a U.S. model. If you had to see a plant when we first got here, you had to go to Sweden.”
The first phase broke ground in 2010. It was up and running the following year.
The city of Flint started saving about $200,000 annually because the plant resulted in a 30 percent reduction in the sludge burned in its incinerator, he said.
The second phase will provide an electrical source for the city’s wastewater treatment facility and, eventually, take its vehicle fleets off diesel, Guise said.
“The original idea was to have a demonstration plant," he said. "It does save money, but I like to tell people it’s sort of an interim step.
“What we want to do is this incremental expansion.”
The first phase takes 100 percent of the sludge from the city’s wastewater treatment plant to a large container called a digester. The sludge is then continually stirred at 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The gas created by the sludge breaking down is separated from the remaining waste, which is burned off by the city’s incinerator.
The gas is used to power a boiler, which heats the digester to keep the microbes that break down the waste at the right temperature.
The city saves money on operating its incinerator because it is no longer burning 100 percent of its sludge.
The second phase will include a food waste receiving station and dosing tank, possibly operating a second digester, building an electrical station for the wastewater treatment plant and taking the incinerator offline.
The waste that would have been burned off in the incinerator is instead composted for various uses, including the recovery of brownfield sites or ground cover.
The additional fuel generated by adding food waste is used to power the electric station for the wastewater treatment facility.
It has yet to be determined if the second digester will be used in the second phase.
“It kind of depends on the financing,” Guise said. “We may just do the north with some food waste, or do both. It just costs more. But we are definitely going to put in electrical generation.”
The second phase is projected to be completed in the summer of 2013.
Taking the city’s vehicle fleet off of diesel is would start in 2014, which is if everything goes as planned, Guise said.
“We figure we could probably power 20 to 25 vehicles,” he said. “It’s the equivalent of 150,000 gallons a year of diesel. And then that has pretty good economics at $4 a gallon.”
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