SC Johnson’s new cogeneration plant will be first of a kind in the nation
A plant that will generate power from landfill methane gas is under construction in Sturtevant for SC Johnson & Son.
Bukacek Construction, Racine, is handling work on a 5,000-square-foot pre-engineered steel building that will house the power plant at SC Johnson’s Waxdale manufacturing facility at 8311 16th St.
Northern Power Systems, based in Waitsfield, Vt., is responsible for design and implementation of the plant, which will have the capacity of 3.2 megawatts of electricity – half the current power demand of the Waxdale facility.
The system will recover 17,000 pounds of plant steam per hour (17 million BTUs) and, by 2005, reduce the Waxdale plant’s CO2 emission by 32,000 tons – 47% of its current emissions, according to Northern Power Systems. The Waxdale plant’s use of fossil-fuel-generated power will be cut nearly in half by that time, SC Johnson said.
The waste methane gas will come from the Republic Services’ Kestrel Hawk landfill site, one-half mile to the east of Waxdale. SC Johnson will purchase the gas, at a cost of $200,000 to $300,000 per year.
The overall project will cost SC Johnson about $5 million, but the company said it anticipates $2.4 million in energy cost savings each year of the power plant’s operation.
The steel building being erected by Bukacek will house a turbine engine which, through a process called cogeneration, will burn the methane gas to produce electricity.
Heat from the turbine’s exhaust then will be recovered to produce steam to be used by the Waxdale facility. That steam will supplement steam currently produced by Waxdale boilers.
Bukacek is also responsible for the equipment foundations and all the pipe racks, inside and out, said Gregg Thompson, Bukacek co-president.
To help SC Johnson meet its commitment of CO2 reduction for the year, the project is on a fast track. "We’re on a fast schedule," Thompson said. "A completion date has been set for 2003."
The project is part of SC Johnson’s ongoing environmental program to reduce manufacturing-related emissions.
"The greenhouse gases we save through this process will be equivalent to keeping 3,200 cars off the road per year," said Dr. H. Fisk Johnson, chairman of SC Johnson.
The groundbreaking took place just three days after SC Johnson received the first-ever Lifetime Atmospheric Achievement Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, recognizing the company for its commitment to protecting the ozone layer and climate.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), only about 30 US companies have developed an energy recovery system utilizing otherwise wasted landfill methane.
The SC Johnson project is unique in its cogeneration process of using methane gas to make electricity and recovering waste heat for use in the Waxdale plant as steam.
The cogeneration system is projected to be fully operational by the end of the year.
July 25, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
