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San Jose, CA – Achieving a goal of 100 percent energy independence is a little closer for San Jose thanks to a momentous move by the City Council today. The City Council authorized the City Manager to negotiate and execute a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop potential lease terms and guidelines for developing an organics-to energy bio-gas facility.

The bio-gas facility, planned to be constructed and operated by Zanker Road Biogas, will be based on a 40-acre site near the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plan. The proposed facility would also be bound on either side by two solid waste recovery and recycling facilities owned and operated by Zanker Road Resource Management, Ltd.

The MOU, which was authorized today, will set forth the guidelines and work-plan for the potential lease terms of the bio-gas project. Pending successful negotiations for the MOU, San Jose will issue a lease to Zero Waste Energy Development Company, Inc., a partnership between GreenWaste Recovery and their sister company, Zanker Road Resource Management.

This project would also see the cooperation of GreenWaste and Harvest Power, Inc., a company that provides leading technology and project development capabilities for harnessing the renewable energy in organic waste.

The Zanker Road Biogas facility would be the first facility in the U.S. with the technology to turn organic waste into bio-gas, keeping San Jose at the forefront of clean technology innovations. The technology that would find its home at the San Jose facility would use a process known as dry anaerobic fermentation to generate renewable bio-gas and high-quality compost. This technology has already been made popular in Europe.

All of the existing anaerobic digestion systems in common use in the United States currently process wet waste. By contrast, the technology for the proposed Zanker Road Biogas would use the dry fermentation technology specifically designed to process the relatively dry organic waste found in the municipal solid waste stream which is difficult to recycle without extensive pre-processing and currently ends up in a landfill.

This anaerobic digestion system technology has been commercially demonstrated in Europe by BEKON Energy Technologies, which has built 12 facilities in Germany and Italy and has 13 additional facilities scheduled for construction in 2009.

“This project not only demonstrates San Jose’s leadership in the production of renewable energy but will help us meet the economic development, zero waste and energy goals of our city’s Green Vision,” said San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed.