MaxWest snags Florida poop-to-power deal
By Ford Gunter
updated 5:00 p.m. PT, Sun., April. 20, 2008
A Houston start-up has signed an agreement to turn a Florida municipality's human waste stream into energy.
Billed as a "poop-to-power" operation, MaxWest Environmental Systems Inc. will convert the City of Sanford's waste stream "sludge" into methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen through high-temperature gasification. The city will then use those gases as a source of energy instead of buying natural gas.
"A big part of our push is to be an onsite solution," says Rich Heien, president of one-year-old MaxWest.
To dispose of sewage waste, municipalities can send sludge through MaxWest's dryers, which remove about 90 percent of the moisture. The remnants are usually sprinkled over a landfill, but in places like Florida, which has issues with groundwater contamination, there's a push to stop depositing dried sludge in landfills.
MaxWest's gasifier eliminates that issue by receiving the dried sludge, gasifying it in a near-complete combustion, and giving the minimal remnants to concrete or paving companies free of charge.
The gas that is extracted will be used to power the dryer, saving Sanford, which is located near Orlando, an estimated $9 million over the course of the 20-year contract. In the future, Heien says, the thermal energy could be used to generate electricity.
MaxWest is in talks with other municipalities in the Northeast, where land is at a premium, and in California. Without a landfill shortage or groundwater contamination issues, the Texas market may only be made up of agricultural customers looking to dispose of animal manure from operations such as dairies or horse farms.
"We are talking with a couple of folks in Texas, around the agricultural industry," Heien says. "There's a lot of land available (in Texas). From an environmental standpoint, there doesn't seem to be the incentive or push to address the issue."
The City of Houston's Public Works & Engineering Department has not looked into MaxWest's technology, but Public Information Officer Alvin Wright says his department is beginning a study to determine the feasibility of "using natural gas to generate electrical power and then using the waste heat in the sludge-drying process."
Controlled costs
MaxWest markets itself as a cost-effective solution rather than an eco-friendly solution, but in places where green is not only good but mandated, the system addresses both.
"The good thing is that they can tell us what our cost is going to be," says Paul Moore of Sanford's Public Utility Department. "Natural gas, you don't know. With a known amount, we can plan for the next 20 years."
Moore says Sanford's sewage treatment plant spent about $280,000 last year on natural gas, and will save about $30,000 in 2009, once the gasifier is operational in the fall. The $9 million in savings is based on estimated natural gas prices over the next 20 years.
"Plus, it gives us some options to bring in other materials from other cities to get that price lower," Moore says.
Sanford is the first municipality in North America to employ this technology to its waste stream, but the process itself is hardly new. Gasification has been around for more than 100 years -- and the Germans famously used it to create diesel to fuel the Nazi war machine in the 1930s and 1940s.
MaxWest's gasifiers, which are designed and manufactured in Kamloops, British Columbia, have been used to render other biomass into fuel for years, long before MaxWest's inception a year ago.
Maxen Capital LLC, a Houston finance capital boutique, was created with the specific purpose of acquiring Westwood Energy Systems Inc. and its Kamloops facility.
The ensuing entity, MaxWest, employs six people at its Houston office in the Galleria area, eight in British Columbia, and about 15 more who are permanently in the field.
Heien says the company will continue discussions with municipalities in the Northeast and California to gasify sludge, but MaxWest's next focus will be on animal waste.
© 2007 Houston Business Journal
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