brilliant idea to make money
The scent of burning wood mulch smells like money to New Bern.
While the city is still bracing for smaller returns in nearly all of its revenue categories, its partnership with the Craven County Wood Energy Biomass Plant has yielded monumental returns.
Since late September, the city has been selling at least 25 tons of wood mulch daily to the plant, which is in the Craven County Industrial Park. City leaders thought the partnership with plant operator CMS Energy might "put a little extra money" in New Bern's piggybank this year, Assistant City Manager Danny Meadows said.
They weren't expecting an extra $100,000.
That's what we're on target to make by the end of the first year," Meadows said Tuesday. "We've made anywhere from $8,000 on the low end to as much as $11,000 a month."
The city's wood waste comes from its curbside pick-ups and from limbs that are hauled to its convenience centers. That wood was always ground up, anyway, and made available to the public.
Some of it still is free to the public. But on the rest, New Bern makes $16 a ton.
At the plant, the mulch is put into a boiler and as it burns, it generates steam.
"We're not talking about steam that comes from a teapot, either," said Jeff Holyfield, a spokesman for CMS Energy. "It is 1,200 to 1,500 degrees - industrial strength."
That steam powers a turbine hooked to a generator, and "wood energy" is born.
The plant generates 50 megawatts of electricity, which is then sold to power companies.