WKBT La Crosse, WI-NewsChannel 8-Gundersen Lutheran and City Brewery Begin Creating Energy

Reported by Lara Reed

Gundersen Lutheran and City Brewery Begin Creating Energy

Gundersen Lutheran flipped the switch Wednesday on a new heat and power project that takes methane gas waste created by City Brewery and turns it into power.

The gas that fuels used to fuel flames, will now be used to fuel a hospital.  Gundersen Lutheran and City Brewery have partnered together to build a new heat and power plant.  The engine takes the methane gas produced as a by-product of the brewing process and turns it into clean energy.

Gundersen Lutheran CEO Dr. Jeff Thompson says, "It shows that it can be done. We dont' have to wait for somebody to fix things for us we can take it on and get it done."

And what this healthcare company wants to get done is to be energy independent by the year 2014.  That means they will be producing as much renewable energy as it takes to power their La Crosse and Onalaska campuses.  This new power engine is a big chunck of that puzzle, 10% to be exact.  And there is still the potential to do more at this site because Gundersen is only using about 40 percent of the methane gas that's being made.

Gundersen's Efficiency Improvement Leader Corey Zarecki says, "We're looking into other options, potentially another engine, or run it back to their boilers and some other things like that to harness the rest of that energy."

And all the money they aren't spending on energy costs comes back to you.

Thompson says, "We spend $4-5 million on energy for our organization. If we don't have to spend that money on power we can then use that money to help decrease costs for our patients."

Zarecki adds, "When you think about the president's main issues its the economy, its energy and its healthcare and this hits on all of them."

The new power plant will create about three million killowatt hours of energy, that's enough to electricity to power 299 homes.