(Bloomberg) — Lockheed Martin Corp., the world’s biggest
defense company, is seeking to control as much as 10 percent of
the global market for systems that turn garbage into energy.
The company announced its first commercial waste-to-energy
plant in November, and the 5-megawatt project in Germany will be
fully operational by January 2017, Mo Vargas, Lockheed’s
bioenergy business leader, said Friday.
Lockheed is using technology developed by Concord Blue
Energy Inc. The companies announced a partnership in 2013 that
will take advantage of both the growing need for renewable
energy and the ever increasing supply of garbage. Global waste
generation may increase to as much as 6 million daily tons by
2025, compared with 3.5 million tons per day in 2010, the World
Bank estimated in 2013.
“Our goal is 5 to 10 percent of the market over the next
five years,” Vargas said by phone. “That would put us in a
great position.”
Energy is a small part of Lockheed’s business. The
Bethesda, Maryland-based company’s aeronautics and missile units
provided almost half of its sales last year, and it didn’t break
out results for bioenergy operations.
The project in Germany is expected to handle about 50,000
tons of waste annually, mostly from forestry. The company also
is producing units as small as 250 kilowatts, including one that
will be used at a Lockheed site in Owego, New York, that will be
able to convert about 3,650 tons of waste a year.
Concord Blue
Concord Blue uses a gasification technology that turns
municipal waste into electricity and fuel without incinerating
it. That’s why Lockheed pursued the partnership, Vargas said.
“With incineration, you get some heat out of it to turn a
steam turbine, but the pollution is still tremendous” and
cleaning it up can be expensive, Vargas said.
Converting waste into fuel and power, especially for
smaller municipalities and islands that rely heavily on diesel
for producing electricity, also reduces emissions and helps the
environment.
“And just look at the overall availability of municipal
solid waste,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Justin Doom in New York at
jdoom1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
Will Wade, Robin Saponar