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Wednesday, July 02, 2008 Garbage In, Megawatts OutOttawa will build the first gasification facility in North America to make energy from waste. By Peter Fairley
This week, city counselors in Ottawa, Ontario, unanimously approved a new waste-to-energy facility that will turn 400 metric tons of garbage per day into 21 megawatts of net electricity--enough to power about 19,000 homes. Rather than burning trash to generate heat, as with an incinerator, the facility proposed by Ottawa-based PlascoEnergy Group employs electric-plasma torches to gasify the municipal waste and enlist the gas to generate electricity. A few waste-to-energy gasification plants have been built in Europe and Asia, where landfilling is more difficult and energy has historically been more costly. But PlascoEnergy's plant would be the first large facility of its kind in North America. The company's profitability hinges on its ability to use a cooler gasification process to lower costs, as well as on rising energy and tipping fees to ensure strong revenues. PlascoEnergy's approval marked the latest in a string of positive developments for waste gasification projects in recent weeks. Last month, Hawaii okayed $100 million in bonds to finance a waste-to-energy plant using plasma-torch technology from Westinghouse Plasma, based in Madison, PA, that is already employed in two large Japanese waste processing plants. Meanwhile, Boston-based competitor Ze-gen reported the successful ramp-up of a 10-metric-ton-per-day pilot plant in New Bedford, MA, that uses molten iron to break down waste. Most gasification plants work by subjecting waste to extreme heat in the absence of oxygen. Under these conditions, the waste breaks down to yield a blend of hydrogen and carbon monoxide called syngas that can be burned in turbines and engines. What has held back the technology in North America is high operating costs. Plasma plants, using powerful electrical currents to produce a superhot plasma that catalyzes waste breakdown, tend to consume most of the energy they generate. As a result, the focus of plasma gasification plants has been to simply destroy hazardous wastes. "There was really no thought of being able to produce net power," says PlascoEnergy CEO Rod Bryden. PlascoEnergy started looking at gasification for municipal solid waste five years ago, when it determined through simulation that cooler plasma torches could do the job. "The amount of heat required to separate gases from solids was much less than the amount being delivered when the purpose was simply to destroy the material," says Bryden. PlascoEnergy tested the models on its five-metric-ton-per-day pilot plant in Castellgali, Spain (jointly operated with Hera Holdings, Spain's second largest waste handler). In January, the company began large-scale trials in a 100-metric-ton-per-day demonstration plant built in partnership with the city of Ottawa. |
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Ethanol from Garbage and Old Tires
02/19/2008
Comments
Siphon on 07/02/2008 at 12:33 PM
93
ChuckInReno on 07/02/2008 at 2:17 PM
14
minho_ on 07/03/2008 at 6:42 AM
1
Are there any cutting edge solutions to enhance the efficiency of Biogas-Digesters? (e.g. bacteria, catalyst)
ALFaNewman on 07/16/2008 at 11:22 PM
1
johnalphonse on 07/03/2008 at 9:13 AM
78
blackbelt5407 on 07/03/2008 at 9:43 AM
1
energymv on 07/09/2008 at 12:03 PM
19
edwight on 07/12/2008 at 11:48 AM
1
• Energy—Using the energy content of the waste consumed, the efficiency of the Ottawa facility can be calculated to be below 20%. For each ton of material used for fuel, another ton must be produced from virgin materials to replace it. The US EPA has supplied data on the energy required to produce a ton of each constituent of municipal solid waste from both virgin and recycled materials. The energy saved by recycling is three to five times that produced using waste as a fuel. Recycling the materials instead of using them as fuels saves more than the “megawatts out” even if the thermodynamic limit for energy efficiency could be achieved.
• Environment—Producing new products from virgin raw material requires processes such as mining, use of fossil petroleum for plastics and fuel, and cutting or growing trees, all of which are detrimental to the environment, and are not sustainable. Recycling paper and plastics would mean that fewer trees would be cut from Canada’s boreal forest and less of Alberta destroyed in extracting petroleum from oil sands.
• Economy—The EPA-data indicates that recycling the 400 MT/d would provide 1500 jobs with better pay than the average of all jobs, and add $25 million (US) to Ottawa’s economy. Recycled materials are essential to industry. Without recycled paper and cardboard, e.g., newspapers could not be printed nor products shipped in cardboard boxes.
Ottawa’s low recycling rate, especially the 17% for commercial waste that constitutes 70% of the waste, provides the opportunity to recycle much more of its waste, saving energy and the environment, while stimulating the economy. Ottawa should follow the lead of San Francisco, Guelph, Edmonton, or Vancouver with a zero-waste goal.
Flip on 07/09/2008 at 12:27 PM
6
energymv on 07/09/2008 at 2:23 PM
19
If this technology is all it is cracked up to be I would expect to see a few large metropolitan areas especially in the Northeast, where landfill space is in short supply, to begin lining up with RFPs or more likely sole source contracts for PlascoEnergy to build them some these plants. The footprint is only 3 acres. The future looks very bright for this company and their patented technology if their environmental performance stats are honest. They are not asking Ottawa to fork over any subsidies (other than space) to build the proposed 400 tonne per day plant. They are about to strike a deal with Ottawa where the company would put up all the necessary capital. The company and its patented system appear to be self sufficient and competitive.
lwheeler45 on 07/20/2008 at 2:29 AM
1
1. the physical limitations of a working plasma torch is about 16 inches and it cannot handle liquids easily due to the rapid expansion to gas.
A better CHEAPER system was reviewed by me in use in Eustis Fla which has a energy balance of over 150% and a coversion to high grade PROPANE of well in excess of 90% using medical waste.
It is EPA and EU certified for the disposal of haardous medical waste and yes it's internal heating elements improvement have been patented.
It runs on the plasma torches powered by 8 modified electric mig welders and is built from off the shelf parts and designed so it can be mass produced .