Dive Brief:

• Sevier Solid Waste Inc. in Pigeon Forge, TN has partnered with Nashville-based PHG Energy to build a $2.25 million biomass gasification plant capable of converting more than 30 tons of composted material daily into thermal energy while producing high-carbon biochar that will be sold as fuel.  
• The project has been awarded a $250,000 Clean Energy Tennessee Grant through the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. The facility should be complete by mid-2016.
• Sevier Solid Waste also operates a garbage composting plant that processes more than 100,000 tons annually from Sevierville, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. All the municipal solid waste is processed through the plant, with 60% of it being made into compost.

Dive Insight:

PHG Energy’s gasification plants employ a thermochemical process that cleanly converts biomass to a combustible fuel gas, the News Sentinel reported. About 90% of the biomass becomes fuel gas, and the only remaining residue is the charcoal-like biochar, that in this case will be sold to a local industrial user as a renewable source of fuel to displace coal.

This will be PHG's 15th gasifier. A new waste-to-energy plant is nearing groundbreaking stage in Lebanon, TN.

"This is our second municipal project to receive approval this year, and [it] demonstrates the growing confidence in our technology," said Tom Stanzione, PHG Energy’s president. "We have a strong research-and-development commitment to converting [municipal solid waste] to energy and reducing landfill usage."

Green3Power also recently announced a waste-to-energy project in Florida.