jet powered city?

[Zippiot]

i just talked with the mayor of my town (mountain view california). he said that over 70% to sometimes even 90% of the electricity for my town is provided by 2 large methane turbines!

first a little background. the methane is extracted from a park that i work at, 20 years ago it was a large garbage dump. now that it has been covered in dirt, methane is building up. infact, the ground used to catch on fire when someone would drop a cigarette (at the shoreline ampitheater).

the mayor said that these 2 large methane turbines split the load. they take shifts of 2-4 hours, and both run during peak hours.

a few cool things about this sytem. once all the equipment was set up, this thing is practically free to run. it creates more electricity than it uses (to pump out the methane). the fuel is free, at least until it runs out, which is estimated to be over 25 years from now. i dont know about maintenance, the mayor mentioned something about checking them every day and doing a full systems test every month, but no idea how often parts need to be changed...

i just thought it was cool