LANSING – If Michigan pursues development of alternative energy it could result in hundreds of thousands of jobs created in Michigan, Governor Jennifer Granholm said Monday after touring a Lansing plant using landfill-created methane to generate electricity.

Granholm called the electric generating facility at Granger Energy, a division of Granger Container Services, a great example of what the state hopes to see developed in the upcoming years. The facility tour was part of Granholm’s efforts to build on her call in the State of the State address to boost development and use of alternative sources of energy.

The jobs created by the use of alternative energy would help replace jobs lost in the manufacturing sector, Granholm said, but not supplant the auto industry. The state wants to build on the history of the auto industry with alternative energy as a source of helping develop electric engines and other power sources that do not rely on oil.

The Granger plant, open since 1991, now produces 3.2 megawatts of electricity annually, enough to power about 2,000 average-sized homes, said Tonia Olson of Granger. But the plant is expanding, and by the end of the year will produce 6.4 megawatts of electricity.

The plant is one of six similar landfill gas-generated operations Granger has underway across the state. All told, Olson said, the Granger projects produce a total of 18 megawatts a year, all of which is sold to Consumers Energy.

However, at the end of 2008, the plant Granholm toured will turn its generation over to Lansing-based Board of Water and Light, and Olson said the plant could eventually be expanded to produce as much as 12 megawatts of electricity.

Granholm called for the state to adopt a renewable portfolio standard that would have 25 percent of the state’s electricity generated by alternative energy sources by 2025, and Joel Zylstra, Granger’s chief operating officer and the executive in charge of energy operations, told her during the tour that such a standard could help drive interest in similar types of plants.

There are a number of landfills now not using the methane generated for electrical generation, though all landfills of a certain size are required to vent the gas produced, Zylstra said.

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