Madison County Agriculture Economic Development

Wind l Landfill Gas Utilization l Woody Biomass l Natural Gas l Contact

(NEW) Madison County Land Inventory: Summary l Presentation l Term Paper

Madison County is poised to be a leader in the green energy movement that is currently sweeping the country. Opportunities abound for projects such as wind power generation, methane digestion, landfill gas utilization, feedstock production for ethanol and power generation, and more. By now many of you have noticed the County’s newest wind farm in the Towns of Stockbridge, Madison, and Eaton. Additionally, work will hopefully soon begin on a project to capture and utilize methane from the County’s landfill to produce electricity. Another area in the green energy arena that Madison County has the potential to excel at is the cultivation of feedstocks used in the production of ethanol or electricity. Although corn is the current focus for large scale ethanol production in the U.S., woody crops such as willow are said to be the real future of the industry. The State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) in Syracuse is a leader in research focused on creating ethanol from woody materials (called cellulosic ethanol) such as forest thinnings and dedicated agricultural feedstocks such as short rotation shrub willows. The process is many times more efficient than the production of ethanol from corn and yields additional lucrative byproducts such as acetic acid. The only two commercial scale cellulosic ethanol production facilities in New York State are planned for Lyonsdale and Rome, both of which are right in our backyard.

Fallow and marginal cropland are excellent places to grow short rotation willow crops. SUNY ESF also has a long established program of research focused on growing shrub willows for use in power generation and now cellulosic ethanol. Madison County has thousands of acres of fallow or marginal cropland that would be extremely well suited to this type of crop. The mucklands in Lenox and Sullivan, many of which are no longer in production, represent one unique example of the area potentially suitable for willow growth in Madison County. The willows are planted as 12 inch cuttings and are cut back (coppiced) after one year of growth. Following coppicing, they are allowed to grow for three additional years, at which point they are harvested and chipped for use in a variety of applications. Fields only need to be replanted every 20-25 years, so it represents a very different cropping system than many of our local farmers are used to. Such a plantation is located off of Harp Road in the Town of Lincoln, and has been used as a research facility for ESF for a number of years. Madison County is a part of a Central New York Consortia that recently submitted a grant proposal to the United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy to overcome some of the hurdles currently facing larger scale willow production. In addition, we are actively seeking opportunities to involve willing and interested members of the farming community in opportunities to become involved in green energy production. Many Madison County farms could benefit from added revenue (not to mention the environmental benefits) and rural development that could come from opportunities to grow energy crops. For more information on this and other willow related projects, go to the following website: http://www.esf.edu/willow/ .

Morrisville State College is also a leader in green energy production with a number of innovative projects already underway. They have installed a methane digester, which through a complex series of operations, uses cow manure to generate electricity. They have a small scale wind turbine on the schools dairy education facility, and they are looking into projects that develop biodiesel from products such as soybeans and algae. For more information on these and other programs, please see the following website: http://www.morrisville.edu/ . Although this article doesn’t begin to touch upon all the projects in Madison County, it does highlight the fact that there are numerous green energy projects underway with many more opportunities for growth in the future.

Wind
Wind Energy is currently one of the fastest growing energy sources in the United States. As the sun heats the earth, it does so unevenly, creating wind. The wind energy can be harnessed by modern turbines and converted into clean, sustainable energy.

Madison

Madison County’s first wind farm
Completed in October of 2000
20 million kilowatt-hours annually
7 turbines, with a capacity of 1.65 mw each

Fenner

Completed in November of 2001
89 million kilowatt-hours annually (enough to power about 10,000 homes)
20 turbines, with a capacity of 1.5 mw each
Downloads:
Fenner Renewable Energy Education (FREE) Center l Fenner Wind Power Facility l Fenner 30 MW Wind Power Generation Facility

Munnsville

Completed in 2007
Over 40 mw of power generation
3,500 acre wind farm site
Potential to reduce 109,000 tons of CO2 annually
23 turbines, with a capacity of 1.5 mw each
Read more about Airtricity in Munnsville

Wind l Landfill Gas Utilization l Woody Biomass l Natural Gas l Contact

Landfill Gas Utilization
As 2008 wanes a new source of renewable energy is being brought into production using methane-rich landfill gas in a project demonstrating why Madison County is a leader in renewable energy. The project is a cooperative effort by the County and WM Renewable Energy, LLC from Houston, Texas (WMRE). It will produce about 1.3 megawatts of electricity at the Madison County Landfill in the Town of Lincoln. That’s enough power to serve a community the size of Madison County’s own Village of Cazenovia, New York.

Landfill gas, rich in methane, is produced from anerobic decomposition of organic wastes disposed of at the County owned facility on Buyea Road. Methane gas is produced by the decomposition of organic material such as plant, human and animal wastes by bacteria. Due to the high percentage of organic material in the Landfill’s waste stream, methane is produced in large quantities at the facility.

Landfill gas is environmentally harmful if not controlled. It’s a “greenhouse gas” twenty one times more harmful than carbon dioxide in its contribution to global warming. It can’t be prevented from forming but its effect on the environment can be minimized and controlled by combustion.

The County Department of Solid Waste has collected and burned the landfill gas in a super-sized candlestick flare for several years as part of its comprehensive, environmentally-friendly solid waste management program. Combustion in a flare is a satisfactory method of landfill gas disposal but it wastes the energy value of the gas.

The energy value of the landfill gas may be put to better use in direct burn applications such as heating buildings or as a fuel in an internal combustion engine to generate electricity. The County made two previous attempts to harness this energy in electricity production with two other developers. Both attempts failed due to cost and the technical aspects of marketing the power.

In early 2007 the County issued an Request for Proposals to solicit a partnership with a private developer with experience in landfill gas utilization. Over the course of several months of discussion with a host of developers, WM Renewable Energy, LLC emerged as the strongest partner. WMRE is a wholly owned subsidiary of the highly successful Waste Manangement, Inc. WMRE is a national leader in landfill gas utilization at landfills owned by its parent company and by other municipal and commercial entities.

Under the agreement between the County and WM Renewable Energy, the County will continue to operate the landfill, recover the landfill gas and sell to WMRE for use as fuel to run a generator. WMRE will build, own and operate an electricity generation facility and sell the electricity it produces to third Parties on the open market. The County and WMRE will share the revenue from electricity sales of this “green power”.

When the facility comes on line in late 2008, the public and groups interested in learning more about this source of renewable energy will be able to tour the facility.

Wind l Landfill Gas Utilization l Woody Biomass l Natural Gas l Contact

Woody Biomass
Fallow and marginal cropland are excellent places to grow short rotation willow crops. SUNY-ESF has a long established program of research focused on growing shrub willows for use in power generation and now cellulosic ethanol. Madison County has thousands of acres of fallow or marginal cropland that would be extremely well suited to this type of crop. The mucklands in Lenox and Sullivan, many of which are no longer in production, represent one unique example of the area potentially suitable for will growth in the county. The willows are planted as 12 inch cuttings and are cut back (coppiced) after one year of growth. Following coppicing, they are allowed to grow for three additional years, at which point harvested and chipped for use in a variety of applications. Fields only need to be replanted every 20-25 years. Such a plantation is located off of Harp Road in the Town of Lincoln, and has been used as a research facility for ESF for a number of years. Madison County is a part of a Central New York Consortia that recently submitted a grant proposal to the United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy to overcome some of the hurdles currently facing larger scale willow production. In addition, the county is actively seeking opportunities to involve willing and interested members of the farming community in opportunities to become involved in green energy production. Many Madison County farms could benefit from added revenue (not to mention the environmental benefits) and rural development that could come from opportunities to grow energy crops.

Central New York’s Biomass Power Generating Facilities (pdf)

SUNY ESF Harvest, May 2007

For more information, contact:

Madison County Planning Department
County Office Building
PO Box 606
Wampsville, NY 13163

Wind Power: Jack Miller, (315) 366-2478, jacob.miller@co.madison.ny.us
LFG Utilization: Paul Miller, (315) 366-2377, paul.miller@co.madison.ny.us
Woody Biomass: Scott Ingmire, (315) 366-2498, scott.ingmire@co.madison.ny.us