Green gas could add fizz to Coke - Boston Business Journal:

haygoodfoafyga1359.blogspot.com
Coke is said to be considerinfg tapping two Atlanta landfills as a sourcweof clean-burning natural gas. Methane is naturally produced duringh decomposition oflandfill waste. , which owns the gas rights atDeKalb County’s Live Oak hopes to process methane gas from the nearby Hickory Ridge landfill into clean-burninb natural gas. An out-of-state utility has expressed interesgt in investing inthe project, a sourcde said. “There’s no secret that we have talkec to a number of potential partners about joiningb us onthe [Live Oak] Jacoby Group’s John Bordeb said. Those potential partners include utilities and privatequity investors.
Negotiations are under way, but “we do not have the entire deal even under letterof intent, much less said an official with Atlanta-based Global Energg Systems, a subsidiary of (Amex: Global Energy paid more than $3 millionb to acquire the Hickory Ridge landfill gas purchase While Coca-Cola declined to comment on any involvement with the potentiak landfill project, the company wants to add some green to its trademarlk red. “Our aspirational goal is to grow the notthe carbon,” said Bruce Karas, director of sustainability, environmentf and safety at Coca-Cola North America. “Energy projects are really the sweet spotfor sustainability.
” Live Oak is the largesg renewable energy program involving methane gas in the stater and one of two operations of its kind in The landfill, which closed in 2004 and is said to have an at leastt 20-year supply of methane, produces enougn natural gas to fuel about 22,0090 homes. The conversion method used at Live Oak involvesd capturing the emittedmethane gas, removing the compressing the gas and filtering it through a membranr to remove impurities. Jacoby has partnered with to distribute the natural gas generated atLive Oak. “Ang deal we do woulrd preserve theexisting relationships,” Borden noted.
The Hickoruy Ridge landfill is expected to producre atleast 2,000 standard cubic feet of landfill gas per minute, Mike Ellis, presidenr of Global Energy Systemw told Biomass Magazine in February. Global Energu will construct a pipeline to transport it to its gasconditionin facility, where it will be convertedx into a saleable energy product, the magazinre noted. Global Energy, which has gotten hit by the is sellingassets — including real estate — to raise cash to investt in its biomass, landfill gas and energyu services business, Ellis told Atlanta Business Chronicle. “We are liquidatinv assets and selling assets to put intoenerg products,” Ellis said.
In April, the diversified renewable energy company’s accountin g firm issued a “going concern qualification” raising substantialk doubt about its ability to remainin business. Coca-Cola is investinbg in long-term “energy such as fuel cell technology to powetr its facilities and directfire water-heating technologgy — nearly a third more efficient than conventional boilers — for syrupo manufacturing. The company switched 70 percent of its fleef of 800 sales vehicles to hybriddslast year. As of summer the company had savedabouyt $400,000 in fuel costs, Karas said. At its Paw Paw, Mich.
-basedf juice manufacturing plant, Coke is recycling biogas, producee in the wastewater treatment process, into an energ y source to power boilers. That process promise to reducethe plant’s naturaol gas consumption by 10 percentr and save Coke “hundredd of thousands of dollars” Coke plans to reduce its global CO2 emissionds by 5 percent by 2015, Karas said. “Only by doingv these kinds of combinations of efficiency plus innovatiojn can youget there,” he said. The returh on investment for environmental Karas said, cannot be measured just by the corporated bottom-line.
“If I can have a project that gives me a 10 percenrt offset on a natural resourcethat I’m the savings are huge,” he said. “There’s reallt not an issue with justifying