Last week my husband, Dan, and I enjoyed a two day bus trip sponsored by Nobles Cooperative Electric. We had talked many times of going on one of these tours, but work usually won out, and we never took advantage of the opportunity. Let me encourage you to go if you ever have a chance. It was so interesting and educational, plus so much fun meeting new friends and faces. And we got to witness a pretty amazing Twins game!
The tour that we were a part of was the Renewable Energy Tour, with our destination being Elk River, Minnesota. These two days revolved around Great River Energy, a cooperative owned by 28 member cooperatives. This company generates and transmits electricity for members across the state of Minnesota. People from the Twin Cities, to the northern Arrowhead Region, and back down to our farming communities in southwest Minnesota all benefit from this not-for-profit cooperative.
In the production mix of Great River Energy (GRE) there are twelve power plants and nearly 4,800 miles of transmission lines. The diverse mix of baseload and peaking power plants includes coal, refuse-derived fuel, natural gas, fuel oil, and wind and solar generated power. It is the second largest power supplier in Minnesota.
One of the most fascinating parts of the tour for me was seeing the Elk River Resource Recovery Project. It is a “waste to fuel process”. There are two facilities that combine their efforts to provide renewable energy from waste for approximately 25,000 Minnesota homes and businesses every year. They are: Elk River Resource Processing Plant and Elk River Energy Recovery Station. Both were part of our two day tour, along with GRE headquarters.
The process begins when Municipal Solid Waste is delivered by the county haulers to the Elk River Resource Processing Plant. Trucks drop off the waste, and a grapple crane removes items right away that might damage equipment. We witnessed a very large and bulky waste shredder get even more recyclable material. It was all used to make Refuse-Derived Fuel. Just amazing…and it is keeping so much out of our landfills!
About four percent of the waste is recyclable ferrous metal…more commonly known as steel. The metal is captured by a magnetic separator, and then it is recycled. Aluminum is also separated using an eddy current. Would you believe that almost every year there is enough steel recycled to build another Eiffel Tower…and enough aluminum to produce 100 million new beverage containers?!
Up to 95 percent of the waste is converted to Refuse-Derived Fuel which is packed into trailers and transported to the Elk River Energy Recovery Station. The Elk River Processing Plant reduces the amount of waste going to Minnesota landfills by up to 300,000 tons every year! Approximately 1,500 tons of waste can be processed daily. It was interesting to find out that the workers at these plants learn every job, being trained by each other, within a two year span. They have very little turnover in employees, and have great pride in their work and the safety taken while working.
The Elk River Energy Recovery Station was originally a coal power plant, but was converted to an energy from waste facility in 1989. This plant currently provides 29 megawatts of electricity using Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF). This is classified as a renewable resource in Minnesota. The plant operates around the clock, and surprisingly produces fewer emissions than one pound of garbage burned in a household burn barrel. Each day about 50 truckloads of RDF are delivered to the on-site storage facility and then moved to the generating plant on an overhead conveyor system.
Besides touring the renewable energy sites, we enjoyed some wonderful meals, an overnight stay, and a Twins game on the night of June 13th. It was a record-breaking night when the players scored multiple homeruns and more hits in one game than ever before! If my memory serves me right, we had a great win of 20-6 over the Seattle Mariners. The weather was warm, the company delightful, our motel and bus very comfortable, and the time and schedule planned for us was well thought out. Again, I would encourage you to “sign up” when you have the chance. It will be well worth your time.
And…I encourage you to “ keep on, keeping on” with recycling and helping to keep our environment clean and the landfills as empty as we can. We owe it to our grandchildren and future generations.
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