HONOLULU -- Trash at the Central Maui Landfill creates gas, which Maui officials want to convert into energy. Energy commissioner, Doug McLeod said the county is considering its options including selling the gas to nearby Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company.

Another option is to process the gas into fuel for your cars, or the more appealing alternative is burning the gas to produce electricity on site.

“The combustion option seems to be the most proven technology. It's something where we could buy an engine and put that to work. On the other hand it is attractive to think that the gas could be reused potentially by the sugar mill,” said McLeod.

McLeod said the amount of generated gases could power patches of homes and businesses across the island and burning gas at the source would have a direct financial impact.

“Once we got a combustion turbine in here, we can be pretty confident that we know our operating cost and it wouldn't rise like the price of oil,” said McLeod.

A previous proposal suggested the county go to a waste to energy facility by 2015; which would cut down on the amount of trash in the landfill and methane gas produced. McLeod said the county is still evaluating the trade-off.

“If we went to burning the methane we could power approximately 1,500 homes here on Maui. If we did waste to energy 3,000 homes if we kept all the trash here,” said McLeod.

Once an option is chosen, McLeod said the contract is put out for bid.