All eyes will be on Ottawa’s Trail Road Landfill to see whether its plasma gasification technology could be as cost effective, while keeping below strict environmental and emissions standards.

After months of controlled tests, Tyler Hamilton1 reports that in January Plasco’s Ottawa plant will begin to accept a regular stream of MSW (Municipal Solid Waste). Hamilton notes that to live up to promises, in terms of low-emission Syngas production at the PlascoEnergy Trail Road Facility, “all the bad stuff is removed using carbon filters and sent to a toxic landfill.”

He further informs:

“A tonne of waste will produce clean synthetic fuel gas, which substitutes for natural gas, 300 litres of potable water, 150 kilograms of clean, inert granular material to replace sand in the production of concrete, and small quantities of industrial salt and fertilizer grade sulphur. There are no air emissions released from the conversion process,” according to the company.

The company also claims “zero dioxins and furans and non-detectable levels of mercury” from the exhaust of the Jenbacher engines.* “The cost to convert waste … will generally be less than the cost to bury that waste in a landfill,” said Plasco chief Rod Bryden.

* Note: Jenbacher is a trade name for gas-fueled reciprocating engines manufactured by a division of General Electric. Packaged in generator sets and co-generation units, GE’s Jenbacher gas engines “are known for their high efficiency, low operating cost and exceptionally high reliability. The engines combine a high output density with low exhaust emissions and low-cost construction.” GE Energy Web Site

In the PAG (Plasma Arc Gasification) process, a gas (air) is ionized by passing high voltage between two electrodes, converting the gas into plasma. The energy of the plasma arc is so powerful; it breaks down matter into it’s component parts by stripping the valence electrons from the atoms, and tearing apart the molecular bonds. The plasma arc is intensely hot (as high as 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit). The plasma plume can render any organic material into elemental components. Thus, dangerous chlorinated toxins, e.g., PCBs, dioxins and furans, supposedly are consumed.

The Toronto Star reporter approves of the approach that Plasco is taking.

Starting slowly with small-scale pilots. Proving the technology works. Raising money from the private sector and sharing risk with the communities it sells to. So far it has conducted itself professionally and with caution.

Unfortunately, prior to when the plant in Ottawa has had “several months of regular operation and independent testing under its belt”, i.e., “the real comfort test” that will come later next year, Hamilton’s assessment already would seem to have been swayed by economics.

Plasco Energy Group out of Ottawa, Ontario, has raised $35 million from major U.S. fund manager First Reserve Corp., bringing the company’s total funding to date up to $90 million. The rest has been supplied by Black River Asset Management, a subsidiary of Cargill, and Hera Holdings SA of Barcelona, Spain.

More impressive, however, is that Plasco — which uses gasification technology to turn municipal solid waste into synthetic gas — has received a commitment from First Reserve for another $115 million in funding next year. This would bring total financing to about $200 million and, needless to say, brings a strong boost of credibility to the company’s technology (My emphasis).

Gasification of carbon-bearing feedstock does well in an economic analysis and less well environmentally, i.e., in terms of aggregate increases in greenhouse gases or toxins.

There are many companies out there offering energy-from-waste systems based on gasification and pyrolysis, but few have been able to meet major funding milestones. Plasco also has the benefit of having pilot plants in operation, including most recently a 100-tonne-a-day facility in Ottawa.

The business model is straight forward. Plasco earns money from a tipping fee, but also gets revenue by using the Syngas that results from its process to power a Jenbacher engine that produces electricity. In Ontario, that electricity can be sold into the power grid at 11 cents per kilowatt hour.

If — and it’s a big IF — this technology works as promised, I’m a firm believer that it’s the way to go in terms of handling municipal solid waste that can’t be recycled under existing programs. Small gasification plants in communities means fewer diesel trucks on the road hauling garbage to central landfills, it means fewer emissions and less ground leaching from landfills, and it means low-emission electricity from synthetic gas that replaces dirtier forms of electricity on the grid, such as coal.

More needs to be known about the environmental consequences of the gasification of municipal solid waste, before the relative risks become overshadowed by the need for energy.

Some environmentalists I talk with are firmly opposed to this technology, and I can understand why from a certain perspective — i.e. it encourages consumption in society, rather than reduction, reuse and recycling. In other words, any kind of energy-from-waste facility is a big monster with a big mouth to feed, making it okay for people to generate garbage that feeds this monster.

But when it comes down to it — and given that it works as promised, economically (Again, My Emphasis), and is independently proven to work — can we ignore it? Is 100 per cent diversion realistic? Can’t policies and rules be put in place that has energy-from-waste systems complementing — rather than competing against — reduction, reused and recycle programs?

While cautiously in favor of the gasification of forestry waste and municipal solid waste, this blog would take issue with the idea of small gasification plants in communities, since existing designs require a significant daily throughput to justify their cost. With additional demands upon the existing energy infrastructure, the temptation may prove too great and coal will be introduced as a feedstock. (An advantage of such facilities is that it can accept a variety of feedstock. A disadvantage of such facilities is that they can accept coal as a feedstock.) Also, there was omission of other alternatives in the Hamilton proposition, e.g., waste could be brought by truck fueled by bio-methane or clean electricity.

Since MSW means money*, Hamilton also would seem to eschew the European approach, which is to recycle whatever materials it is possible to recycle, before diversion to other processes, e.g., gasification, composting, or anaerobic digestion.

* Note: Over the next five years the largest garbage hauler and landfill operator in North America will spend roughly US $400 million to add bio-gas facilities to 60 landfills and in St. Lucie County, Florida, an Atlanta-based company is willing to pay $425 million for construction of a facility for the gasification of waste at a landfill site.
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