A company that can turn waste into energy and useful byproducts has secured a 20-year lease at the industrial complex at the airport. City Administrator Logan Burns presented the lease to the City Council on Monday and it was approved by an 8-0 vote.
Burns said that over the last couple of years, staff have been working with a potential suiter for leasing ground. Global Green Energy Group (GGI) will lease nine acres just to the north of Sixth Street for $3,375 a month. The lease will automatically be extended for five-year terms unless either party gives 60 days notice prior to expiration.
Information provided at the meeting explains that GGI specializes in waste-to-energy technology. GGI has the ability to process a vast majority of industrial, commercial and municipal waste, including medical waste, tires, plastic and biodegradable materials and household waste.
Global Green uses pyrolysis, which is intense heat without oxygen, for the thermal breakdown of waste materials. Heat from the process is used around the plant to dry incoming waste and power turbines to generate electricity.
The process has emissions that are below international standards and meets the EPA requirements. By-products include synthetic/bio diesel, electricity, bio char and the potential for hydrogen production. The tipping area for tires and potential municipal solid waste doesn’t allow any fumes to escape the area.
“GGI has a contract with a vendor out at the airport to process tires and hopes to add another module to process the municipal solid waste, but they will have to go through that process with the trash contractors,” Burns said.
The potential investment in Great Bend would be approximately $45 million and if GGI is able to obtain enough municipal solid waste for processing, they could add another module and invest another $22 million. Their long-term lender has committed $545 for GGI to build six plants and Great Bend has been chosen for one of them.”
The marketing agent for GGI, Gary Senft with Viking North Environmental Tech, was on the phone to answer questions at Monday’s meeting.
In regard to EPA standards, an audience member asked, is there continued testing for emissions?”
“Yes there is,” Senft said. “We test continually, and you’ll also find that EPA sends their people out to do checks once we’re up and operating.”
Citizens wanted to understand the environmental impact and the potential for contamination of groundwater.
“There won’t be any,” Senft said. “We put nothing outside of the plant.” He said the floor is sloped to catch any fluids created by the breakdown of the municipal solid waste.
“That is cleaned and processed so that we do not have anything going into groundwater – that doesn’t happen,” he said.
Councilman Alan Moeder commented on the concept, saying, “I’m a lot more comfortable with this plant than with what’s going on out at the landfill (that has) a rubber liner. That rubber liner goes bad, we’re going to contaminate a lot of things. So this plant has potential to eliminate a lot of waste in this area.”
Senft said there are many uses for bio char, where the carbon is locked up. It can be sold as a fertilizer or as a fuel.
