An innovation in energy: Lakeshore power plants are going fully renewable

Manitowoc will soon aim to burn a renewable fuel at our power plants.

• Manitowoc Publuc Utilities Director Troy Adams says the plant will be fully renewable, hopefully by 2026.
• The new fuel is made up of paper and plastic that is destined for a landfill.
• The program reroutes 18,000 tons of waste from landfills a month.

(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)

Piles of coal sit outside Manitowoc's largest power plant, but the plan is that they won't be used much longer.

Manitowoc Public Utilities Director Troy Adams is explaining the change.

"It is a direct replacement to coal or pet coke, so we can run that through our boiler,” Adams said. “In a sense, our boiler will end up becoming a renewable power plant."

Adams says the new fuel, some small pellets, are made up of clean industrial waste or paper and plastic destined for a landfill.

"We end up with a 55% reduction in emission impact through the life cycle of this product," Adams said.

He says that's achieved by keeping material out of a landfill and limiting waste that comes from burning coal.

"So, we're getting a reduction in what would have been landfilled on both ends of the process,” said Adams.

He says the new fuel is also much cheaper than coal.

To see how it works, I tagged along with Chief Operations Officer Jeremy Fischer on a tour of the plant.

"We have to look at ways to make this system capable of delivering more volume of material,” Fischer said. “That's the next phase of this project is looking at upgrades to our fuel handling."

The new fuel program reroutes 18,000 tons of waste from a landfill a month. Adams says that's like filling in the bowl of Lambeau Field at least 30 feet.

"That feels really good,” Fischer said. “It's a challenge, it's something that the community expects of us. It's what our ratepayers expect and it works out with the plant as well."

One bonus of the project is that the fossil fuels are brought in from around the country, but the renewable energy is sourced from Appleton and Green Bay, keeping that money in Northeast Wisconsin.