Videos of the landfill gas energy meeting 2013-04-15

Since LAKE was the only coverage of the Pecan Row Landfill Gas Energy meeting 15 April 2013 at Colquitt EMC in Valdosta, these videos let you see the interesting cast of speakers and other attendees.

Our host, Danny Nichols, Colquitt EMC General Manager, expressed concerns about feel-good vs. economically viable energy projects and said he thought the landfill gas project was both, emphasizing “like a switch it comes on”, in other words, baseload. (Colquitt EMC is not big on smart grid.)

GA state Sen. Tim Golden said he and Steve Edwards of ADS went to school together, and he thought this was a good project.


Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter asked everyone to take a look at this project and see if it will work for Lowndes County and Valdosta. He mentioned the basic justification for the project, which is that the gas is being burned anyway as it is flared.

Valdosta Mayor John Gayle said he thought this was a good story, and

I was looking around the room to see if any of our local media, besides the LAKE, was here. Because this is a good story, and I would hope it would take the place on the front page of some of the stories that the city’s been getting.
He was referring to the recent spate of VDT stories about wastewater finances.

Danny Nichols said four previous parties tried to do this landfill gas energy project, and he thinks ESG can make it work. He introduced Christine Keck and Shawn Stancill of ESG.

Christine Keck, Director of Government Relations, Energy Systems Group (ESG), said the proposal for this project came out in the summer of 2010, and she praised ESG’s corporate partners. She gave an overview of ESG with slides: est. 1994, 240 employees, $1.4 billion in projects, etc. Ray Henson is southeast regional director, based in Atlanta. He and Dwayne Bruns (sp?) will be working on this project.

Shawn Stancill, Performance Engineer, ESG said he was responsible for design engineering. He said ESG mostly does landfill gas, although they continue to work in “more traditional” renewable energy which he said were solar and wind. He said this was ESG’s third landfill gas project in Georgia and their sixth nationwide. It will produce enough gas for 4.8 megawatts of power, sufficient to power 2,000 homes.

Steve Edwards, Atlanta Sales and Marketing for Advanced Disposal Systems (ADS), said he and Tim Golden were fraternity brothers. He said “you can have as much methane as you want; take it all”. He reminded us ADS bought Veolia. He said he didn’t forsee any other acquisitions nor anybody buying ADS. He said ADS was the largest privately held solid waste company in the world.

Jeff Pratt, President, GreenPower EMC, mentioned previous projects, and said with this project his company would have about 40% of the landfill gas energy produced in Georgia, which would benefit the EMCs GreenPower EMC supplies. He compared this project to solar, saying it wasn’t something you’d drive by and notice, but he said it was very green. He gave the reason landfills flare methane: methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, so burning CH4 to produce CO2 works. He said the energy produced by this project would be the equivalent of about 300 acres of solar panels. (He didn’t mention there are only so many landfills, and many more school roofs….)

Other elected officials present who did not speak included Georgia Rep. Jason Shaw (District 176), and Lowndes County Commissioners Joyce Evans and Crawford Powell. Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson was also there.

Here’s a video playlist:


Videos by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 15 April 2013.

-jsq