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Boulder City’s trash is one man’s treasure

Entrepreneur seeking council’s blessing to turn garbage into energy, money

Saturday, Aug. 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Entrepreneur Mike Little has been trying to get his hands on Boulder City’s trash for eight months.

He hopes he’s now close to getting 50 tons of it, which he’s confident he can convert into cash.

On Tuesday, Little will attend the City Council meeting, at the invitation of Councilman Travis Chandler, to pursue the next step: getting city support to apply for a permit from the Southern Nevada Health District that would allow construction of a small trash-to-energy plant near the city landfill.

Little, president of Landfill Alternative, told the Boulder City Council in January that trash can be mechanically digested into compost that produces methane gas, which, in turn, can fuel a power generator.

He says rural Boulder City is an ideal place for his pilot project. The city landfill is nearly full and in need of a $5 million expansion — or a new one needs to be built. Little says he would save the city that expense because he would reduce the waste stream that needs to be buried.

Little is not asking the city for any money for the project. Just the garbage.

•••

Greg Danz emerged from Wednesday’s North Las Vegas redevelopment meeting with a blueprint in his hand and a smile on his face.

The owner of the Broadacres Swap Meet will be moving forward with plans to add an amphitheater and other facilities to the property on Las Vegas Boulevard North.

An overflow crowd turned out for the meeting, including hundreds of vendors who saw the fight to expand as a battle to keep their businesses. Danz was asking to be exempted from required 30-foot setbacks, as new codes require, because vendor spaces would be lost.

After the city Planning Commission turned him down, Danz successfully appealed to the City Council last week.

Danz said work will begin soon on improvements to the 31-year-old flea market as he made his way through swarms of well-wishers on his way to a celebratory dinner.

More than 20,000 people and 1,100 vendors attend the meet during busy weekends.

For George Moen, who has sold tools at the meet for 20 years, the decision brought a sigh of relief.

“It feels good,” he said as he strolled out of City Hall. “You’re under a lot of pressure when you’re trying to figure out your future.”

The future for Moen will be keeping his spot just inside the chain-link fence running along Las Vegas Boulevard North.

•••

The saga over allowing Boyd Gaming to build a casino near Interstate 215 and Losee Road in North Las Vegas will continue for about 90 days, at least.

A public hearing for the proposed gaming enterprise district in the undeveloped section of the growing city that began Wednesday has been continued until Nov. 5.

About 200 people wearing bright yellow “No More Casinos” buttons attended the meeting, some waiting outside in the heat for two hours for the chance to be heard. Others said the casino would bring entertainment and dining to the northern section of the city.

Boyd is asking to move previously approved casino plans from Centennial Parkway and Lamb Boulevard to the new site, part of the planned 60,000-resident Park Highlands community. Preliminary construction has begun.

The city’s decision on the 68-acre Boyd site will set the standard for gaming north of Interstate 215 in North Las Vegas. One casino, Aliante Station, is under construction about 3 1/2 miles west of the proposed Boyd casino, and is expected to open this year.

Station Casinos also owns 54 acres adjacent to the Boyd site. That area has not been approved for gaming, although a proposal is moving through city government.

Discussion: 7 comments so far…

By uddeboda

8/10/08 at 8 a.m.

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Mike Little, someone with brains between his ears, using garbage to produce methane gas for powering a turbine to produce energy. I didnt realise that the USA still uses landfill sites for garbage, which actually produce methane gases, 20 times more polluting than CO2. Still it shows initiative, something that is missing in the USA when it comes to renewables
By uddeboda

8/10/08 at 8:07 a.m.

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Mike Little follow up.
Give Mike his due. However the most economical way to NOT landfill garbage is to incinerate it to produce energy and electricity. Sweden has been doing this since the late 50s, and almost every city has a incineration plant, which takes care of ALL household waste, forest waste, industrial waste, in fact anything that burns. Half the homes and industries in Sweden are heated by the hot water produced at these CHP plants. Household garbage is not allowed to be landfilled since many years back.
By PatriciaLV

8/10/08 at 9:34 a.m.

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So if Sweden burns everything, where does the smoke go?
By uddeboda

8/10/08 at 10:37 a.m.

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Smoke?? whats that. You are obviously not uptodate with these very modern incineration plants. Extremely high incineration temperatures, burns and melts any foreign metals, should they be there. The smoke stacks are so designed as to recycle the hot gases, not smoke, to go through once again to heat water for piping out into the towns and cities. The combined plants for the whole of the country emit 0.7 gms dioxin for a whole year. CO2 emissions are as low as 42 lbs per Mwh energy.
By PatriciaLV

8/10/08 at 11:08 a.m.

Suggest removal

That's what I was asking and no, I was "not uptodate[sic] with these very modern incinceration plants".

It's fascinating. One wonders why we aren't doing it here.

Oh that's right; it would cost them money up front. Can't have any forward-thinking around here.
By uddeboda

8/11/08 at 5:23 a.m.

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The incineration plants do cost money up front, and are paid for mostly by the city or town that is building it, there is usually a small investment made by the government. They cost about $100 million a piece, but once they are built the only fuel they use is household garbage, forestry waste, sawmill waste etc, well any waste that burns, so they dont use any fossil fuels. Thereby they do not have a huge fossil fuel bill year on year.
By stopthemadness

10/2/08 at 7:38 a.m.

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About the Mike Little story. Uddeboda, are you living in the stone age? It's people like you who think that instant gratification is the best soulition. The $100 million you say the incineration plants cost could be better spent and achieve many other usefull products allong with electric generation. Liquid transportation fuel being the most important. If you think Sweeden is so much better than America then please move there. And a few are incinerating waste right here in America, I know there is a plant in Florida. And the "monkey see monkey do" lazy fools see that and that makes it all the more difficult for the people like Mile who are trying to get every possible usefull product out of that waste. Look at the problems with the prison in northern Nevada that spent tax money for a similar plant ($8.3 million of state tax money to get 1.03 MW of electricity from a steam turbine using forest waste and a photovoltaic system.)and the waste stream is not enough to fuel it 24/7 so all that expensive equipment sits there and does nothing, more than it produces any energy. Yet another example of what happens when people who studied political "science" insted of real science get involved.
Everyone who is serious about energy independance needs to learn the definition of efficency and apply it to everything they do including spending money. Forest waste (AKA biomass) can be converted into liquid fuel and NOT YUCKANOL.