By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

South Portland City officials caught a whiff of plans to construct a chemical and electricity plant on a municipality-owned landfill during a presentation by the local developer Maine Renewable Energy Consortium (MREC) on Monday. South Portland City Manager Jim Gailey said the proposed three-phase, $17 million project was still “very much at ground zero,” although construction for the plant – potentially located in the Duck Pond area between Main Street and Highland Avenue – could begin as early as next year. 

“This schedule is extremely ambitious,” Councilor Tom Blake said. “Fortunately we have organizations like the [Department of Environmental Protection] and the [Environmental Protection Agency] to keep somewhat of an idle on this.” 

MREC Project Engineer David Martin – formerly a mechanical engineer for Exxon Mobile Corp. – said the first phase would require a 20,000 square foot building with a 50 foot tall sealed emissions stack on the site. Wood chips would then be brought to the facility via the nearby railway system and burned to generate up to four megawatts of electricity. 

“We would not only utilize the steam and electricity for the plant, but offer any additional energy to other customers in the area and possibly any excess to the ISO New England grid,” Martin said. 

Installation of a 40,000 square foot building with a fermentation bio-reactor would begin the second phase of the facility. Using the existing railway, sugar beets could be brought to the facility from the Terminal Island facility on the Fore River, and the beets would be chemically “cracked” and fermented in five tanks – up to 25,000 gallons each – primarily producing the chemical butanol.

“Butanol is less volatile than gasoline, and can be mixed with petroleum products. [Butanol] is the product that could do away with ethanol as a fuel alternative; we’re looking at the future of the U.S. and butanol being a replacement fuel on a much larger scale,” he said. “[Butanol] can be used in paint thinners, solvents and plastics as well.”

Martin said acetone, ethanol and hydrogen gas emissions are also created during the process and the facility would require a road so trucks could remove the acetone byproduct from the facility up to five times a day. 

The third phase of the plan would focus on capturing the hydrogen gasses and water generated by the fermentation process, Martin said.

“We could harness the [gasses and water] as a supplemental growing agent, or possibly for a dry ice plant,” he said.

Councilors agreed the future potential of an alternative fuel plant was promising, but expressed concerns over the impact the plant could have on the surrounding community and the Department of Environment Protection (DEP) regulated landfill. 

“I live next door to this project and my guess is there would be some kind of odor,” Councilor Maxine Beecher said. 

Councilor Claude Morgan compared the 50-foot sealed tower to those “rather smelly towers” commonly found in petroleum plants. 

“It behooves us to collect all [emissions],” Martin said.

Councilor Linda Boudreau said she would be “shocked” if the DEP would allow any type of development on the landfill – capped at the expense of the city via a state mandate in the 1980s – which she understood was only to be used to passive recreation, such as the section of the Greenbelt Walkway located on one of the parcels.

“The Greenbelt would have to be relocated,” Blake said. “That shouldn’t be a problem, it could even be enhanced.”

Blake said although he would “rather see windmills” in the area, it was “hard to oppose any source of energy that reduces our dependency on oil.” He said the project could include the construction of a connector road between Highland Avenue and Dartmouth Street.

“To me it seems so natural to use this energy for the cross-town road,” Blake said. “They’re going to have trucks coming and going, they could also partner with the city for the further development of Exit 4.”

Martin said the fermentation process was currently in a “demonstration phase” – producing 1.5 million gallons of butanol a year – by a group currently partnered with MREC. While Martin could not disclose the identity or the location of the group performing the work, he said the final output of the South Portland facility could be 25 million gallons a year.

“I would think it would make sense for a team to inspect the demonstration site to address some of the issues that have come up, and I don’t want it to come from the taxpayers,” Mayor James Soule said. “Come up with a plane ticket to wherever it may be. We need to see the demonstration project and envision it 10 fold.”