Jan. 22--SUFFOLK -- The City Council approved a permit Wednesday night for Virginia's first green-energy power plant, which would convert methane gas from rotting trash at the regional landfill into electricity and steam.

A Maryland-based company, GPC Green Energy LLC, won unanimous council approval for its $26 million cogeneration plant. It's to be built at Ciba Specialty Chemicals in North Suffolk, off Wilroy Road.

Skip Smith, a GPC executive, told council members that the plant would create the kinds of environmentally friendly power and green jobs that both Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and President Barack Obama endorse as a way to reshape the economy and generate clean energy.

"To hear 'first in Virginia' really makes my heart sing," said Suffolk Mayor Linda T. Johnson after the council voted 8-0 in favor of a special-use permit for the project.

The plant will be built near homes, but no residents voiced opposition Wednesday. Nor did homeowners object during a hearing before the Planning Commission last month.

Ciba spokeswoman Beth Earnst said safeguards -- including a sound barrier ringing the facility -- will mitigate any noise, vibration or odors that could bother neighbors.

Before construction can begin, though, a service contract must be negotiated and signed between the developers and the owner of the regional landfill, the Southeastern Public Service Authority.

SPSA, which faces its own financial crisis, could receive up to $3.5 million a year for the rights to mine methane gas that forms naturally underground amid piles of buried trash.

SPSA spokesman Tom Kreidel said in an e-mail Wednesday that the agency had just received a private-public partnership proposal from Ciba and expects the details to be ironed out soon.

SPSA has provided landfill gas to Ciba for nearly a decade through a three -mile pipeline. The methane provides a significant part of the chemical company's power. SPSA gets about $230,000 a year from the arrangement.

The cogeneration plant would essentially expand that deal, piping all available methane to Ciba and supplying the company with virtually all its electricity. Steam, too, would be captured at the plant and recycled to run manufacturing systems inside Ciba, said Smith, the project manager.

In addition, Smith said, the plant would mean SPSA could stop flaring excess gas at the landfill -- a process in which unused vapors are burned off through an open flame.

Councilman Leroy Bennett, who lives behind the regional landfill, said he especially likes this part of the project.

"From the back of my house I can see that flame 24/7," Bennett said.

According to federal statistics, there are 20 landfill-gas energy projects operating in Virginia today, including one at the Mount Trashmore II landfill in Virginia Beach. Twelve others are in line for permits and investors.

But the state has no cogeneration plants fueled by methane gas that produce both electricity and steam, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which endorses such projects.

Smith said the Suffolk plant would create about 12 high-tech jobs with annual salaries between $50,000 and $75,000, and would require $1 million to $2 million a year for maintenance and repair -- money that would go to local contractors and engineers.

Methane is a powerful gas that is thought to contribute to global warming if allowed to escape into the atmosphere.

Smith estimates that the plant will reduce about 2,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year -- not only from methane oozing from the landfill, but also from the fossil fuels that Ciba must burn for its electricity today.

Whatever ener gy Ciba does not use from the co generation plant would be sold as green electricity to Virginia Dominion Power, which then could supply it to homes and businesses in Suffolk, Smith said.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com

-----

To see more of the The Virginian-Pilot, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pilotonline.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

OTC-PINK:CSBHY,

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.