Mayor Trasolini has made his big move.The city of Port Moody issued an announcement yesterday that it has signed a "non-binding letter of intent" with Plasco Energy Group to build a waste-to-energy gasification plant on city-owned land on the Barnet Highway.
This is great news for the city of Ottawa.
They signed a similar deal with Plasco last month ~ but they got a special clause in their agreement. According to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper: "Because [Ottawa] was a partner in testing the technology, it will get royalties of up to $3.5 million a year after Plasco plants have been sold to other countries and cities and are operating."
Both cities claim they have nothing to lose, since Plasco takes on all the risk and the costs. All the cities have to do is pay the tipping fee to drop off their garbage.
This could cause problems for Port Moody.
The proposed Port Moody gasification plant would process 150,000 tonnes of waste each year. This is likely more waste than is generated by the good citizens of Port Moody, and Mayor Trasolini will have to go out and rope in other cities to make up the shortfall.
The Mayor has charged the Port Moody Environmental Protection Committee to go out and sell the project to the public this summer. Instead, will they be lighting a fire that will burn the Mayor in the fall civic elections?
6 comments:
Trasolini just lost my vote.
PM Resident
If Mr Tasolini is so thrilled with gasification (incinerator} maybe he should put the plant next to City Hall so he can enjoy all it great benifits, such as the smell of garbage and the sound of garbage trucks 24 hours seven days a week.
Pissed of 15 year resident
you can smell this vote leaving
As a member of the Environmental Protection Committee for the city PM I am also against this idea. I hope that the rest of the city council will listen to the reasons why this is a bad idea. As outlined in a recent local news story:
- They are an inefficient source of power, producing only 1 to 2% of needs
- They cost $150 to $250 per tonne of waste;
- They are a contributor to greenhouse gases;
- They are a diversion away from waste-reduction strategies (city of PM has not even implemented composting yet).
- Plasco's Ottawa plant has been operating at 10% or less of rated capacity
- 50% of the waste that the Plasco Ottawa plant receives goes back to the city
- This is therefore an unproven technology
- These plants may produce highly toxic chemicals such as dioxins
- Regional garbage traffic may be trucked through downtown Port Moody
Many of us in the UK have moved forward from Incinerator v ZW (Good/Bad) dialectic to the pragmatic viewpoint on 3Rs,AD,MBT,Resource Recovery, Gas Recovery, CHP via non incinerators. You can't cold turkey a consumer/ wastebsociety as ZWasters hope. An important input; but not always practical, and where people and businesses are at. Thus disconnect from preachers like Paul C. You can recycle/compost 80%. 85% max. You have 20% left. ZW people say don't produce it or design it out. This is like denying original sin. Pure ideal, fantasy. Designing is going to take decades, 2 perhaps. Shout the same mantra, get nowhere. I've little time for rickers analysis as anti incinerator lobbyist myself. I've seen so pretty guilt edge recycling and composting schemes in my time.
They are efficient 40%+
They cost £23-50 / tonne
They release less climate change gas effects than composting (methane,VOC's)
They tackle waste that waste reduction won't tackle anyway. Razors, Santinary stuff
Ottawa is a PG demo place; its not meant to operate anywhere near capacity.
Plasma Gasification has long been proven in many other applications, coal, toxic waste, radiactive waste. It needs to do its 2 years in Ottawa. Many ZW people fear it will succeed and burst there idealist bubble.
Plasma Gasification has emissions far less than incinerators/ 90% less, so dioxin/particular statement are largely ignorant.
Its better for residents and environmentalists to concentrate on practically 3Ring the first 80% of waste before knocking goalkeeper conversion technology that has a lower climate change/CO2footprint than composting (Eunomia,2008)
Plasma Arc Gasification or Gasplasma has a limited but valid role to play with composite, historic and difficult to recycle/compost waste.
This technology may have a valid role to play but let's see it actually used for 2 or more years. Plasco keeps saying they have a proven emissions record.. they have only processed the equivalent of 2 days worth of garbage! This is not a "proven" record. One wonders if Port Moody needs $$ and hence the rush to do this?
Port Hope looks like its on schedule with Plasco, and Ottawa facility is been fine tuned with a waste water treatment plant along with a carbon capture element.
http://www.albertalocalnews.com/reddeeradvocate/news/local/Plasco_moving_on_schedule_46631062.html
After 2 years of proven operation, audited air emissions records, scaled up modularisation; GAIA et al will probably change the goalpost objections.
This will come at a time when GAIA can cite only a handful of ZW Heath Robinson resource recovery parks
(Del Norte, Cal, Camberra, Aus) that are actually in existence; with very little business or local authority interest of investment; needed for the sheer tonnage of 12 recovery.
Personally I beleive their is a place for small module plasma gasification and anaerobic digesters within recovery resource parks. Residual fraction is by ZW experts concensus lies between 15-20%; composite/sullied/unviable materials one can not be recycled/composted. This needs a part technological solution; not reliance on a Designing/Screening out process (Denial/Delusion)Designing and screening out residual reality is a unproven Connett concept; that whilst it holds merit, has had little demonstration or financial interest to date. It will also require time/decades to deliver, time that is running out.
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