A federally funded project in Oakland County, Mich. sent power-saving lightbulbs to 512 households. Photo: Karin Beil, via Flickr
By JULIE MIANECKI
LANSING — Oakland and Macomb counties are getting a little greener with federal money for energy-based projects under the Obama administration’s stimulus program.
Sixty-one communities received grants from the Department of Energy, most in the southeast part of the state. Among them are projects to manufacture wind turbines, generate electricity from wastewater sludge and install solar shingles.
Tim Shireman, a project manager in the Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, said the minimum grant was $50,000, with many projects receiving much more.
“Also, most of these projects have match funds kicked in by the county or city government,” Shireman said. “Some projects are in the millions.”
Communities also competed for additional federal money allocated by the state. In total, Michigan received $76.6 million for energy efficiency programs.
However, the long-term benefits of such projects have been questioned by a Midland-based think tank.
Cogeneration Consultants, a Walled Lake-based company that helps companies use renewable power, received $765,000 to demonstrate an innovative way of converting heat into electricity.
The project will convert heat into electricity by incinerating sludge from a wastewater treatment plant in Warren.
“It’s an emission-free, truly green generator system that creates no adverse byproducts,” said Mark Kowalski, director of program management at Cogeneration Consultants. “In fact, it’s helping the atmosphere because the energy it offsets would normally be a fossil fuel.”
The project started nine months ago with a proposal to Warren. Kowalski said he is waiting for equipment and some matching funds to be approved, but he hopes to break ground within a month and have the system running by the end of December.
“Over 20 years, the cost benefit in savings will be four to five times the initial expense,” Kowalski said.
Huntington Woods also predicts energy and financial savings from its $104,000 federally funded pilot program that replaced residents’ recycling bins with wheeled carts in which all recyclables can be combined. It’s called a single-stream system, unlike traditional systems in which paper must be separated from other recyclables.
Public services administrator Claire Galed said carts went to 450 households and increased the number of participants in the recycling program by 38 percent.
“They love it,” Galed said. “My biggest problem is that the rest of the city is irritated that they aren’t in the pilot.”
She added that the increased volume of recyclables creates energy savings because more material is reprocessed instead of being newly produced.
Huntington Woods plans to expand the program to the entire city by the end of next summer.
Another Oakland County project, for Groveland Township households, distributed 512 kits containing power-saving lightbulbs, showerhead adaptors, insulators for wall plugs and a booklet with energy tips.
The township received $53,700 for the project, which began in May. The last kit was given away in September.
“For a small community like us, this is a really good program because it gets right to the end user,” said Robert DePalma, township supervisor. “It’s something that residents can see, feel and touch.”
DePalma said that although the program was popular among residents, he doesn’t think repeating it would be beneficial “because we got to all the people who wanted to do it. Some people just didn’t feel it was worth it.”
Funding for the 26 other projects in Oakland and Macomb counties included $250,000 for energy-efficient lighting in a new transit center in Troy; $127,148 to replace heating and air conditioning systems in city buildings in Oak Park; $171,895 to upgrade lighting and start an educational program to increase awareness of LED lights in Warren; and $221,377 to evaluate and improve energy efficiency in buildings and educate the public in Independence Township.
Russ Harding, director of the property rights network at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said the practicality of such projects is debatable because of their short-term nature.
The Mackinac Center is a free-market think tank.
“It’s one-time money,” said Harding, former director of the Department of Environmental Quality. “I think that’s a huge problem — you build up the program, then the problem is the money’s gone and then the state or city is in worse shape because they don’t have the funds to continue those programs. You just have to question whether that’s being a good steward of the taxpayer’s money.”
Harding also questioned the basic idea of using federal money for energy initiatives.
“I think that most Americans probably would rate these things pretty low compared to not having enough police or firemen or not having good roads to drive on,” Harding said. “A lot of these are kind of frivolous.”