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ONONDAGA - After more than 17 years, Covanta Energy is still turning Onondaga County's trash into the electricity grid's power.
Morristown, N.J.-based Covanta (NYSE: CVA) operates the energy-from-waste Onondaga County Resource Recovery Facility at 5801 Rock Cut Road in the town of Onondaga through its Covanta Onondaga, LP subsidiary. The 39,000-square-foot facility takes the nonhazardous trash from nearly all of Onondaga County and burns it to generate electricity. Covanta uses some of that electricity to run the facility, while selling the rest to the power company National Grid (NYSE: NGG).
"Anything that doesn't go in the blue bin goes here," says Kathleen Carroll, Covanta Onondaga business manager. "About 90 percent of our power goes to the grid, and we power about 32,000 homes in Onondaga County."
The Onondaga facility generates up to 39.5 MW of power. It can burn up to 361,350 tons of waste a year - 990 tons per day. Covanta estimates its power production over the last 10 years has prevented 5.5 million barrels of oil from...