Thursday, October 04, 2007 City landfill to become energy power plant
CITY Mayor Constantino G. Jaraula is considering the proposal of a private company to design, construct, finance, and operate a waste-to-energy power plant out from the existing city landfill in Upper Dagong, Carmen.
This even as Ricky Beltran, Cebu branch manager of the Philippine Bio Sciences Company, Inc. (Phil-Bio), presented to Mayor Jaraula and other key City Hall officials the technology that will recover methane gas and reuse organic waste materials from the landfill area.
According to Beltran, Phil-Bio is capable of putting in place a Covered In-Ground Anaerobic Reactor (CIGAR) that will hasten the decomposition of solid wastes dumped into the landfill site and convert the area into a 2 to 4 megawatt waste-to-energy power plant.
He explained that using Phil-Bio technology, the City Government does not only save from the cost of transferring the dumpsite to other areas but can also generate income from the sale of energy that will be produced from the waste-to-energy power plant.
If an agreement can be reached between the City Government and the Phil-Bio, the private company is willing to finance the construction of the power plant on a Build-Own-Transfer (BOT) scheme with the City Government getting a 50 percent share of the income that will be generated from the sale of energy.
Already, Mayor Jaraula got the assurance from Cagayan Electric Power and Light Company (Cepalco) officials that it is willing to buy the energy that will be generated by the power plant.
In a meeting with the Phil-Bio and Cepalco officials, Mayor Jaraula welcomed the proposal as a timely response to the City Government's desire to address the issue of air pollution emanating from the dumpsite and its holistic goal of making Cagayan de Oro clean and beautiful.
Jaraula had asked several officials of the City Government to coordinate with the Phil-Bio in the conduct of a waste audit to determine the volume of waste dumped into the landfill and the amount of biogas that can be generated from the area. (CIO)
