HOPEWELL - U.S. Sen. Mark Warner has hopes for Hopewell to become Virginia's leading city in clean energy production.

"In the beginning of the 20th Century, Hopewell was the industrial capital of Virginia," Warner said yesterday during a visit at the Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant. "Today, in the 21st Century, Hopewell could become our capital for clean energy," he said.

Warner visited Hopewell to get a first-hand glimpse at the city's new algae demonstration project, which was funded by a $650,000 federal grant that Warner helped to secure. "I've read about the project, and my staff explained it to me, but I wanted to come down and see it for myself," Warner said.

Hopewell launched the project in November. Until at least September, algae will be used to clean nitrogen from wastewater instead of conventionally engineered solutions. This new technology is a more cost-saving, green approach to nutrient removal, which results in cleaner waters in Virginia's rivers and in the Chesapeake Bay.

Plant director Mark Haley gave Warner a personal tour of the facility. "It would be great to see if we can use modern technology for a dual purpose - decrease the nitrogen in the Bay and create a by-product for fuel production," Warner told The Progress-Index.

Excess nitrogen in the plant's discharge is one of the main challenges of wastewater treatment, and the regional plant is currently not designed to remove nitrogen. Haley estimates that it would cost $90 million to upgrade the plant with conventional solutions. "This would result in higher sewer rates for the citizens and a higher cost for the local industries," Haley said.

The algae project could even generate a profit - because algae creates a residue which can be used to produce bio-fuel and green coal.

But in the test phase, it is not clear if the project works on a larger scale. "It has a lot going for it, compared to traditional ways of removing nitrogen," Haley told Warner. "But the question is - how much of these machines do we need to treat a whole plant?"

Currently, the plant treats 30 million gallons of wastewater every day, and only 100,000 gallons are treated with algae. "I would need 300 of these in order to make it work," Haley said. "And that would probably be too costly."

But the goal is to find out how to make it work, Haley added. "Maybe we need less, but we won't know until we find out," he said.

Warner said his expectations are realistic. "This is just a project, and there isn't going to be a single solution," he said. "But this could be a home run, and we will try to get Congress to fund this further, if it proves to be successful."

Warner added that renewable energy technology would help the United States gain independence from other nations. "It makes no sense for our country to depend on foreign oil. We should not have to buy oil from countries that don't like us," he said. This might be part of the answer to get us out of that dependence."