Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll, during his visit to Washington, D.C. for a climate leadership summit among mayors and other local officials, has reported that he hoped the projects will qualify for partial support from federal stimulus money.
Driscoll has also reported that the main idea was to revive plans for a 20-megawatt (MW) gasification plant similar to a project scrapped in 2007 by Siemens Building Technologies, a division of Siemens.
Siemens Building Technologies wanted to construct the plant in Syracuse and power it with locally grown willow shrubs. The company ended up backing out of that deal.
Jean Smiley, Onondaga County’s administrator for physical services, has reported that after sending out requests for proposals in March 2009, the city-county team has received nine responses by the end of April 2009. The proposals included a full range of renewable energy sources, including one proposal to use Onondaga County’s sewage sludge to make unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel.
Smiley also added that some of the proposals were specific for city properties, while others, such as the sewage sludge, would focus on county properties.
Smiley quoted that a technical committee, which includes engineers and finance specialists from Syracuse and Onondaga County, has started reviewing the proposals. The members of the Syracuse Common Council and Onondaga County Legislature also will be part of the review process.
We’re hoping to wrap it up by the end of June and make recommendations on what proposals to pursue, Smiley said.
We were very pleased with the responses we received, Smiley said. There was a lot of interest out there.
Syracuse and Onondaga County taxpayers can now pay about $60 million a year for the energy that powers municipal buildings, almost all of which comes from fossil fuels.
