Archive for August, 2009
August 27th, 2009 | 
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Energy from Waste: The Myths Debunked
You MUST watch these videos.
Far from it being the universally proven technology claimed by its promoters, the incineration of municipal trash with energy recovery has been an experiment which after 20 years has left the citizens of industrialised countries with a legacy of unacceptably high levels of dioxins and related compounds in their food, their tissues, their babies and in wild life.
Dr. Paul Connett is a full and tenured professor of chemistry at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he has taught for 15 years. He obtained his undergraduate degree in natural sciences from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Dartmouth College in the US. For the past 14 years he has researched waste management issues with a special emphasis on the dangers posed by incineration and the safer and more sustainable non-burn alternatives.
Part one:
Part two:
Part three:
B.C. Town Rallies to Stop Toxic Waste Plant
A recycling centre would be a natural fit with the environmentally minded residents of the town, whose population of 1,500 swells to about 6,000 over the summer.
But upon learning that the proposed facility would be a big gasification plant for recycling hazardous petroleum industry waste from Alberta, B.C., and California, anticipation turned to shock and incredulity.
Now the residents of Christina Lake, a picturesque resort town located just north of the U.S. border between Grand Forks and Trail, B.C., are rallying together to stop the plant.
Vancouver-based Aquilini Renewable Energy has applied to the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary to rezone a 100-acre parcel of land to allow a waste-to-energy recycling plant.
Although currently zoned industrial, the town’s bylaws explicitly prohibit petroleum-based industry of any kind. It is that aspect of the zoning that Aquilini wants changed.
Richard White, a spokesman for a group of local property owners, says locals fear that if the plant goes ahead, Christina Lake’s currently thriving tourism industry, on which the town depends, could suffer.
“Ninety-five percent of the local industry is based on the service industry, to service the resort and the tourist areas. If something like this comes in it could absolutely devastate what we have in place now, and what we all hold so dear and so close to our hearts. It could ruin the whole area.”
Over 400 people—including about 40 from south of the border—attended a meeting on the issue last Thursday, at which experts spoke of the downside of petroleum waste-to-energy plants and their adverse effects on human health and the environment.
White says the proposed site sits on an aquifer that not only supplies water locally but also to the town of Laurier in Washington State. Residents are concerned that a toxic spill could contaminate the aquifer, while the high water usage needed for the hazardous waste recycling process could deplete the water supply.
The waste, consisting of toxic, volatile chemicals, would be transported by rail and road, which poses the risk of accidental spills. In addition, the site is located adjacent to private properties, he says.
“The local people would be impacted by 24 hour-a-day operations, seven days a week.”
In a submission to the regional district, Aquillini Renewable Energy said it would build a “world class” facility modeled on European designs that would produce no odours, keep noise to “an acceptable level,” and cleanly recycle the wastes into reusable alternative fuel while maintaining “the highest operational and environmental standards.”
“Aquillini Renewable Energy is committed to the long term sustainability of the environment and the health and welfare of its community, province, and country,” wrote company president John Negrin.
Aquillini also said the plant would provide local employment and boost the tax base.
David Tambellini, whose father’s family settled in Christina Lake almost 100 years ago, says that while he’s all for new industry and more jobs, a petroleum recycling plant is simply wrong for the area. He believes the risks involved far outweigh any benefits the plant might bring.
“We’d be sacrificing one economy for a dubious other one, and once we sacrifice that economy that’s based on our clean air and water reputation, it’s gone forever—it’s not something we could get back. It’s not worth the price on our environment, health, and economy.”
Tambellini notes that the only other gasification plant of this type operating in Canada, the Swan Hills Treatment Centre located 240 km north of Edmonton, has a “horrible track record.”
Over the years, the controversial Swan Hills plant has been plagued with spills and leaks, as well as small “fugitive” releases of over ten times the legal limit. In 1996, the plant’s operator was fined for an accident that sprayed PCBs, dioxins, and furans—some of the most toxic chemicals in existence—into the air.
According to a study by the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, gasification plants’ air emissions include carbon monoxide, particulate matter, methane, ammonia, dioxins and furans, and the heavy metals cadmium and mercury, among many others.
These contaminants, many of which are emitted in the form of miniscule nano-particles, would pose a problem for Christina Lake, nestled as it is in a valley surrounded by mountains, says Tambellini.
“Given the prevailing wind patterns, these particles will accumulate at the north end of our lake. There’s sort of a funnel when the wind blows from the south and it develops a bit of inversion, especially in the winter, and there would be no place for them to go but into the water or into the land around the lake.”
The City of Port Moody recently rejected a similar industry, stating that “any waste to energy technology must prove itself to be significantly more refined and stable than its predecessors, and to meet acceptable emission targets, before being implemented on a production scale in our region.”
As well as health and environmental concerns, Tambellini says the locals are worried about the plant’s impact on property values.
“Who’d want to retire here or buy a place if they knew it had a gasification plant?”
White says a petition in circulation opposing the plant currently has 1,700 signatures and counting. He estimates that 85 percent of the town’s residents are against the proposal.
Of the 13 regional directors who will vote on whether to amend the zoning to allow the plant, only one lives in Christina Lake. The vote is expected to take place after a presentation by Aquillini toward the end of the year.
“We’re keeping our fingers crossed that politicians will come to their senses and see what a preposterous proposal this whole thing is,” says Tambellini.
Aug 26, 2009
Port Moody City Council Says No to Gasification
This is really worth reading – the entire article is at http://www.no-burn.org/article.php?id=534
It shows how Port Moody’s Mayor and Council handled a similar event in their city – Good for them!
Original Article here – http://www.no-burn.org/article.php?id=534
Statement from Environmental Protection Committee’s Task Force of Port Moody, Canada
In December 2007, Port Moody began investigating the feasibility of a waste to energy (WTE) facility at the Barnet Highway Landfill. In June 2008, the city entered into a non-binding letter of intent with PlascoEnergy to look at the feasibility of building a waste conversion facility designed, financed, constructed and operated by Plasco at the Barnet Highway Landfill. PlascoEnergy proposed that the potential site would process up to 400 tonnes of waste per day.
What we did: City Council requested the city’s Environmental Protection Committee (EPC) to oversee a public due diligence process to review this proposal. In July 2008, the Committee formed the Waste Conversion Facility Task Force and asked the Task Force to conduct due diligence on the proposal and report back to Council.
What we learned: The Task Force completed its public meetings in August and September, and presented its report and recommendations to Council for their meeting of October 14th.
On October 9, 2008 the city received a letter (available here) from PlascoEnergy indicating that they had fulfilled their obligations under the Letter of Intent and did not wish to participate further in considering development of a Plasco Conversion Facility at the Barnet Highway Landfill site in Port Moody.
What we decided: Upon deliberation of the Task Force recommendations, Council passed these resolutions:
THAT the City of Port Moody is not an appropriate location for a waste conversion facility;
AND THAT the following Environmental Protection Task Force on Waste Conversion Facility recommendations be endorsed:
1. THAT any waste to energy technology must prove itself to be significantly more refined and stable than its predecessors, and to meet acceptable emission targets, before being implemented on a production scale in our region. The Task Force suggests that at minimum 18 months of independently verified operational data in a continually operating commercial scale facility would be needed to show that the technology operates within acceptable environmental impact parameters;
2. THAT there is no acceptable level of introduction of dioxins and furans into our environment;
3. THAT any process introducing air emissions, waste to energy, or otherwise, in the region would be the subject of full regulatory review, testing and monitoring, in a regional context, including net impacts on the entire Fraser Valley;
4. THAT further analysis and opinion of scientific experts should be obtained to determine an acceptable distance that such a facility should exist in relation to residential areas, and that full analysis of regional air shed impacts of such a facility in Metro Vancouver be conducted;
5. THAT any regional waste to energy initiative should be fully evaluated, in both a local and regional context, and should be temporary in nature as we take positive measures to increase diversion and thus reduce the residual waste to a level where it could be handled by existing methods, thus eliminating the need to consider any waste to energy solution;
6. THAT waste to energy should NOT be considered as ‘RECOVERY’ in the 5 R’s model of waste management as a means to obtaining the 70% diversion goal. Waste to energy or waste conversion technologies should ONLY be considered in the context of ‘RESIDUALS’, after every effort has been made to reducing the solid waste stream;
7. THAT Council relate the concerns listed in items 1-6 above to Metro Vancouver board.
THAT in the context of this application, any other application on this site, and waste management issues in general, the following recommendations of the Environmental Protection Task Force on Waste Conversion Facility be endorsed:
1. THAT a full traffic impact study be completed;
2. THAT the noise impacts would need to be fully studied and evaluated by the appropriate experts before permitting any such intensive industrial operation on this site;
3. THAT the city investigates the impact on plant and animals that would be associated with any development on this site, and that these impacts are mitigated as much as possible;
4. THAT the Fire Department would require a hazardous material study and a review of Fire Department access and fire safety systems be conducted;
5. THAT the city perform a review of the zoning/land use on this site, in community consultation, either within or in addition to the current OCP process;
6. THAT the city, through the Environmental Protection Committee, continues to investigate and implement initiatives for waste reduction, recycling.
This release in its original form can be found on the City of Port Moody’s Website.
Plasco gets chilly reception in Port Moody
From – http://blog.zerowastevancouver.org/2008/08/plasco-gets-chilly-reception-in-port.html
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Plasco gets chilly reception in Port Moody
A larger-than-expected audience turned out for last night’s public meeting hosted by the Port Moody Environmental Protection Committee’s Waste Conversion Task Force. They came out on a hot Tuesday night after the long weekend to hear about the Plasco garbage gasification process proposed for their city.
It was hard to judge what the 100 people in the room were thinking as they listened to Rod Bryden, Plasco President and CEO. Bryden has a very effective speaking style: quiet, sincere, understated. The audience remained polite and attentive even as the presentation went on for double the allotted time (60 minutes, rather than 30).
Then the members of the Council-appointed Task Force, which is made up of citizens and chaired by Councillor Mike Clay, began posing questions.
For instance, they asked Bryden to clarify Plasco’s position on composting. Surprisingly, Bryden suggested that composting is a “sacred cow” and that the city might do better not to spend money separating organics from the garbage and just have them gasified instead.
The organic materials would be “returned” to their “preceding natural elements” just as the other wastes are. And all these simple “elements” would then “recombined” into one product: syngas.
One product that can serve one purpose: producing energy.
(What extreme simplification, it occurred to me. Willing to give up all that diversity and all those opportunities for a quick shot of energy. When will someone notice that energy is the elephant in the room: we’ve already demonstrated that we don’t know how to use energy responsibly ~ now we’re willing to burn anything we can get our hands on to make more….)
Bryden was then pressed by members of the audience on his claim that the Plasco facility will have “no stack.” People pointed out that the energy generation component of the Plasco facility is combustion of the syngas in an internal combustion engine, a process that cannot occur without a stack to allow the release of carbon dioxide… along with other substances including dioxins, furans and nanoparticles that Bryden had to admit were theoretically possible in the emissions, company predictions notwithstanding.
In response to another question from the audience, it came out that in addition to the stacks there are “flares” for the synthetic fuel to be burned off without producing energy, in the event of a malfunction in the engine.
And malfunction of the equipment was a problem, Bryden admitted under insistant questioning from the audience. When the Ottawa test plant stopped using “surrogate material” and moved on to real garbage, the feeder system jammed up (“crankcase stuck in the shredder”) and they had to ship the waiting waste back to the city landfill while they resolved the problem. This is why the test plant was able to process only half the waste the city delivered to it. Welcome to the real world of dirty fuel, Plasco.
Asked if Port Moody’s plant could be scaled smaller than the proposed 400 tonnes per day (which is approximately 36 times more waste than is produced by the households in Port Moody), Bryden said they could scale it down some ~ but if they went below 200 tpd it would reduce the “efficiency” and perhaps make the plant uneconomic.
The economics were of interest to the audience who probed, among other things, the $3.6 million dollar “royalty” to Ottawa if Plasco drums up business in other communities.
The audience also posed a question to Councillor Clay: why the rush to complete this enquiry in the summer? Can there be a referendum in the fall election? To which Clay did not shut the door.
If there is a referendum, the process that Clay is leading will be a huge contribution to the process. Hats off to Port Moody, a town of 30,000, for conducting a public “due diligence” process that brings out an audience of this size. And hats off to the good citizens of Port Moody who are taking the trouble to dig for answers before the city signs up.