Let me turn your trash into energy, entrepreneur urges cities

By Mike Trask

Monday, Feb. 11, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Michael Little wants Boulder City’s garbage — all 50 tons of it that get dumped into the city landfill each day.

In Little’s eyes that trash is cash, or at least power.

The president of Landfill Alternative presented Boulder City officials with a plan to turn trash into energy last month. It’s a simple process, he said.

“It’s not rocket science,” he insisted.

Boulder City, situated in a rural area with a lot of space, would be the perfect place for his research project. Plus, the city of 15,000 needs to do something with its garbage. Its landfill is nearly full and it faces the nearly $5 million cost of expanding the facility or starting a new one.

Turning that garbage into energy would reduce the waste that needs to be buried.

“Anything that could reduce and clean up landfills is worth looking into,” Mayor Roger Tobler said.

The technology exists — and is being used elsewhere — that would allow Little to do exactly what he promises.

The trash basically gets sorted and processed before going into a device called a digester, where it gets broken down, as in a superfast compost.

The resulting material produces methane gas, which, in turn, powers a motor that generates the electricity.

“It’s not a pipe dream anymore,” said David James, chairman of UNLV’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. “It’s pretty intense. It’s not for the faint-hearted. You need to monitor these closely. It’s an industrial plant.”

Whether the technology gets used in Boulder City remains to be seen. Little hasn’t met with anyone from the city since speaking at a City Council meeting in January.

He says he would need to work out a use agreement with the city.

Little has never built or run such a plant. Nevertheless, he insists that within months he could have one ready to handle Boulder City’s trash.

The city has plenty of questions, though — mostly about the cost because, as Councilwoman Linda Strickland noted at the meeting, the city doesn’t have any money for the trash problem.

The parties will likely meet again.

In the meantime, Little is traveling across Southern Nevada with his homemade waste-to-power plant design, a 10-foot-long chunk of white cardboard that shows his dream.

He’s made a similar presentation in Pahrump and has submitted several grant applications.

Although he realizes some will look askance at his idea, the Reno architect says the proposal, if nothing else, is an attempt to tackle a problem that isn’t going to go away.

“At least I’m trying to do something,” he said.