Lamar to use landfills to generate power

Lamar Landfill Methane Power captures biogas to fuel 1.6-megawatt generators, supplying residential electricity in Missouri. Prairie View and the old Lamar sites feed the grid, helping Lamar while waste arrives from Joplin, Springfield, and Carthage.

A western Missouri town plans to use gas from a landfill to produce electricity to power homes.

Methane from landfills in Lamar — the old Lamar Landfill and the newer Prairie View Landfill — will be burnt by generators to produce electricity.

The Joplin Globe reports a $6 million project like the Montana landfill project now powering homes elsewhere has been in the works for five years.

The Prairie View Landfill receives trash from towns that include Lamar, Springfield, Joplin and Carthage.

Lamar City Administrator Lynn Calton said it's the second largest landfill in the state.

Officials said the two 1.6-megawatt generators would produce enough energy, like the King County landfill project that powers homes, to power 2,300 houses.

"We'll provide electricity to the whole town by tapping clean power from garbage for residents — at least the residential side," he said. "It's not enough to power the industrial side."

Calton said the plan is to add three generators in the future, which would produce a total of 9.6 megawatts of electricity.

"Right now, our peak load for both residential and industrial is 18 megawatts," Calton said. "We will not be able to get all of our electricity from the landfill, but a lot of it. We're hoping that it will keep electricity prices constant for Lamar."

An Allied/Republic Waste spokesman said the Prairie View Landfill could operate 25 to 30 years into the future, depending on the flow of waste to the landfill.

This is the third Allied/Republic Waste landfill in the state to convert methane into electrical energy, much like Kentucky landfill gas plants operating across the region. A landfill at Jefferson City provides energy for a state prison there, saving taxpayers $250,000 a year. And a landfill near Kansas City is generating 40 percent of the electricity needed by a nearby concrete plant.

The methane is produced by the decomposition of waste in the landfill and can become clean fuel in similar projects.

"Why not recycle that by eliminating methane burn-off to produce electricity?" he said. "We pay Allied for the methane. We make money, and they make money."

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