As Americans search for solutions to the nation’s energy problems — foreign oil dependence, shrinking fossil fuel supplies, global warming — Rick Koch hopes they don’t overlook their garbage cans.

Koch is a construction manager for Moline, Ill.-based Green Construction LLC, which specializes in projects that convert trash into energy. His latest endeavor is at the Denton landfill, where he’s worked since August to see that one man’s trash could be another man’s power supply.

DRC/Barron Ludlum

Rick Koch with Green Construction LLC walks by the Caterpillar engine that turns landfill gases into energy at the Denton landfill. Denton Power LLC started operating at the landfill last week.

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The project started operation last week, trapping “landfill gas” (methane and carbon dioxide) from decomposing landfill waste, processing it, and selling the converted power to Denton Muni­cipal Electric for distribution.

When it reaches full capacity in January, the mini power plant will supply enough energy for an estimated 1,000 to 1,600 homes.

The project is a partnership between the city and Denton Power LLC, a subsidiary of DTE Biomass Energy of Ann Arbor, Mich. It’s one of a growing number of similar projects throughout the nation focused on both cutting methane emissions and putting the heat-trapping greenhouse gas to use.

More than 450 landfill-gas-to-energy projects were operating in the U.S. as of September, including 22 in Texas, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The projects combined generate about 11 billion kilowatt-hours of power each year.

The Denton project is one of about two dozen run by DTE Biomass Energy, a subsidiary of Detroit-based DTE Energy. The company claims to have collected more than 300 billion cubic feet of landfill gas since 1995 — the equivalent of the annual emissions of more than 12 million passenger vehicles.

The Denton project is the company’s first in Texas. It is unusual because the city owns the landfill and is buying the resulting power, said Scott Simons, a spokesman for DTE Energy.

“This is the first time we’ve actually worked with two governmental units on both sides of the process,” Simons said.

The city spent about $1.2 million to build gas extraction wells and a collection system at the landfill. DTE Biomass Energy agreed to operate and maintain an energy-generation system and pay the city 12.5 percent of the revenue it grossed from power sales. Denton Municipal Electric signed a separate sales contract with the company, but the terms were not made public.

“DTE wanted to hold the right to sell that power to anyone else on the market; they could have sold it to TXU or anyone else,” said Phil Wil­liams, the general manager of the city’s electric utility. “We felt like it was a very fair proposition that we struck with DTE, because in addition to buying it at a fair market value, we’re also supporting renewable energy.”

The plant sits on a 1-acre site adjacent to the shuttered Biodiesel Industries Inc. facility, which turned used frying oil into fuel under another public-private partnership. The biodiesel plant closed last spring, and the California company recently agreed to pay the city $650,000 to resolve a lawsuit over its performance.

By contrast, Koch expects only success for the city’s latest partnership. To Koch, a blunt-spoken contractor for DTE, methane is the new oil — or will be when enough people catch on to its benefits.

Oil supplies may dwindle, he said, but “there’s frickin’ always going to be garbage.”

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com