Green gas could add fizz to Coke - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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Coke is said to be considerinfg tapping two Atlanta landfills as a sourc eof clean-burning natural gas. Methane is naturally produced durinb decomposition oflandfill waste. , which owns the gas righte at DeKalb County’s Live Oak hopes to process methane gas from the nearby Hickory Ridge landfillinto clean-burning natural gas. An out-of-statre utility has expressed interest in investing in the asource said. “There’s no secret that we have talkecd to a number of potential partners about joinin us onthe [Livde Oak] project,” Jacoby Group’s John Borden said. Those potential partnerz include utilities and privateequity investors.
Negotiations are undeer way, but “we do not have the entire deal even under letterof intent, much less said an official with Atlanta-basecd Global Energy Systems, a subsidiary of (Amex: Global Energy paid more than $3 million to acquirer the Hickory Ridge landfill gas purchase While Coca-Cola declined to comment on any involvement with the potentialo landfill project, the company wants to add some greenn to its trademark red. “Our aspirationalk goal is to growthe business, not the said Bruce Karas, director of sustainability, environmen t and safety at Coca-Cola North America.
“Energh projects are really the sweet spot for Live Oak is the largest renewable energyt program involving methane gas in the state and one of two operatione of its kindin Georgia. The landfill, which closedr in 2004 and is said to have an atleasgt 20-year supply of methane, producee enough natural gas to fuel about 22,00o0 homes. The conversion method used at Live Oak involves capturinfg the emittedmethane gas, removing the compressing the gas and filtering it through a membrans to remove impurities. Jacoby has partnered with to distribute the naturapl gas generated atLive Oak. “Anyu deal we do would preserves theexisting relationships,” Borden noted.
The Hickory Ridge landfill is expecteds to produce atleast 2,000 standardr cubic feet of landfill gas per Mike Ellis, president of Global Energy Systema told Biomass Magazine in February. Global Energy will construc t a pipeline to transport it to its gas conditioning where it will be converted into a saleable energy product, the magazine noted. Globa l Energy, which has gotten hit by the is sellingassets — including real estat e — to raise cash to invest in its landfill gas and energy services business, Ellie told Atlanta Business Chronicle. “We are liquidatinvg assets and selling assets to put intoenergy products,” Elliw said.
In April, the diversified renewable energy company’xs accounting firm issued a “going concern qualification” raising substantial doubt about its abilit y to remainin Coca-Cola is investing in long-term “energy innovation” such as fuel cell technologyh to power its facilitiess and direct fire water-heating technologhy — nearly a third more efficient than conventional boiler — for syrup manufacturing. The company switchec 70 percent of its fleet of 800 sales vehicleas to hybridslast year. As of summer 2008, the company had save about $400,000 in fuel costs, Karaz said. At its Paw Paw, Mich.
-based juice manufacturing Coke is recycling produced in the wastewatertreatment process, into an energ y source to power boilers. That processd promises to reducethe plant’s naturall gas consumption by 10 percent and save Coke “hundreds of thousandsw of dollars” annually. Coke plans to reduces its global CO2 emissions by 5 percentby 2015, Karas “Only by doing these kinds of combinations of efficienc plus innovation can you get there,” he The return on investmeng for environmental sustainability, Karas said, cannot be measurer just by the corporate bottom-line.
“If I can have a projectr that gives me a 10 percent offset on a naturap resourcethat I’m the savings are huge,” he said. “There’s reall not an issue with justifying