Waste-eating,power-producing tech has its fans
A super-sized plant capable of processing 400 tonnes of garbage each day should be built in Ottawa, based on “waste-to-energy” technology being demonstrated at a test site here, city staff recommend.
Plasco Energy Group chief executive Rod Bryden yesterday presented a plan for his company to build a $125-million plasma gasification plant, in return for a 20-year commitment by Ottawa to supply waste to feed the plant, at a cost of up to $8 million per year.
“We need a contract that will ensure there is going to be waste to process, otherwise we end up with a $125 million facility and nothing to put in it,” Bryden said.
Next week, the planning and development committee will consider asking city manager Kent Kirkpatrick to negotiate a long-term agreement to supply waste to Plasco. Coun. Peggy Feltmate said Ottawa is not yet deciding on the site’s future, but voting to start the negotiations to keep the process moving forward.
“This doesn’t tie us into anything right away,” she said. “It will come back to us in a few months and hopefully by then there will be more evidence available to help us to decide.”
The lauded technology — which cleanly converts waste to gas under high-heat, low-oxygen conditions without burning it — is in the trial phase, said Feltmate, but there is potential for it to help with local waste disposal problems.
The synthetic gas also operates engines for electricity production that can be sold onto the grid and, as an added bonus, the byproduct is an inert slag that can be used as road patch, for example.
“To me, it would be very premature to pull the plug. It seems to be working. We need to continue with it,” Feltmate said.
– tim.wieclawski@metronews.ca
