Canada – Ottawa‘s homegrown technology is a better bet than incineration

Ottawa‘‘s homegrown waste-to-energy technology is a better bet than incineration because it won‘‘t emit dioxins and furans and it will still handle the city‘‘s garbage at a reasonable cost, businessman Rod Bryden told the The Ottawa Citizen.



Mr. Bryden, president of Plasco Energy Group, will soon be powering up the company‘‘s test plant for gasification of garbage, in a joint venture with the City of Ottawa at the city‘‘s Trail Road landfill.



Wednesday night the company, in conjunction with city Councillor Jan Harder, will hold a public meeting at the Walter Baker Sports Centre in Barrhaven. The company will tell people that the process will produce air emissions far below the limits allowed by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. The company doesn‘‘t expect to discharge any dioxins and furans at all.



The Plasco gasification process breaks down the garbage, turns it into gas that generates electricity. The process will produce an inert slag that can be used as road aggregate or to make paving stones, some sulpher that can be used to condition soil, and some heavy metals that will have to be taken to a landfill.



Other companies, including Waste Management – a big player in the garbage business in Ottawa and North America – are keen to establish incinerators to handle Ottawa‘‘s garbage. But Mr. Bryden said that Plasco should prove attractive because, not only will there be minimal emissions but the company – making 11 cents a kilowatt hour and even higher amounts during peak periods for its green power – will be able to give the city a good deal: $50 per tonne of trash for a first commercial-sized plant and between $55 and $65 a tonne for subsequent plants.



The company plans to be generating the first of its power at Trail Road by the end of May and be operating a round the clock by the fall. If the test site works as planned, and commercial plants are built across North America, the City of Ottawa stands to make up to $35 million in royalties over the next 10 years, for having allowed Plasco to test the technology at Trail Road