THUNDER BAY — Jason Sherband wishes more people knew how Thunder Bay's landfill site contributes to the fight against global warming.
The manager of solid waste and recycling services for the city says the the Mapleward Renewable Generating Station produces enough electricity to power roughly 2.500 homes.
Its energy source is the methane gas that collects under thousands of tonnes of decaying garbage in the landfill site.
The city is currently looking for a contractor to install between five and eight additional gas extraction wells which will help keep the power plant operating.
"We're at the point when we're reaching a certain elevation at the landfill .. .when the garbage pile gets to a certain height, we're required to put some additional wells in," Sherband said in an interview with tbnewswatch.com.
He explained that from time to time, existing older wells also get damaged or no longer perform well.
Approximately 92 wells are currently connected to a network of blowers and underground pipes that bring methane to a building near the landfill entrance that houses a generating station owned by Synergy North (formerly Thunder Bay Hydro).
The plant produces a peak of 3,200 kilowatts of power which is fed into the grid under a long-term contract with the Ontario Power Authority.
When the generating station opened in 2010, officials said it would remove more than 263 million cubic feet of methane gas from the environment, turning a greenhouse gas into a revenue-generating asset for the city.
It was conservatively estimated that the city would net about $15 million over 20 years.
Sherband said he's not sure it's widely known that the city is capturing methane gas.
"I always want to remind people that we are doing this out there...that we are actually producing electricity with our decaying garbage," he said.
Ontario regulations requires accumulated landfill gas to be burned off with a flare system, but Thunder Bay is among those cities which Sherband describes as going "one step farther."
