Gwinnett residents could help fund the Carnesville operation, a power plant that will begin turning chicken litter into electricity in 2008.

Billy Jones, the lead of operations for Earth Resources, said the company will be turning on the lights for more that 15,000 homes in Franklin County. Green Power EMC - a collection of 28 electric membership corporations - will help fund the project.

Jones said local residents could ask to help offset the cost of turning the combination of chicken refuse and wood into electricity by adding a charge to their power bills. He estimated it at $5 a month.

"What we're doing, in essence, is replacing the energy provided to them by fossil fuels," he said. "Our emissions here are clean enough to qualify to be producers of green power."

The project began in 2002, when Earth Resources looked into ways to turn wood from construction and demolition landfills into biomass power. Once that effort succeeded, Jones said, they began looking at other waste.

Source: Gwinnett Daily Post