18 December 2012
Ottawa, Ontario based Plasco Energy has signed an agreement with the City of Ottawa to build a 150,000 tonnes per year plasma arc gasification waste to energy facility.
The company said that under the contract with Ottawa, the City will supply 109,500 tonnes of municipal solid waste and has a right of first refusal to supply the balance of plant capacity.
The site for the facility has been leased to Plasco for nominal cost by the City, which will pay a tipping fee for each tonne processed of $83.25 per tonne, escalating annually at the rate of increase in the Consumer Price Index.
The first 20 years of the contract are fixed and the City has options for a further four five year extensions.
The company added that the City of Ottawa has made no other financial contribution and has no other risk or obligation.
The City estimates that the deal will extend the life of Ottawa’s existing landfill by at least 28 years saving the City approximately $250 million in future landfill capital costs.
Construction is expected to commence in the second half of 2013 with commercial operation planned for the first half of 2015.
Plasma arc technology
The company said that the new facility will be built to the Plasco Conversion System (PCS) design and will incorporate three proprietary Integrated Converting and Refining System (ICARS) modules.
According to Plasco the PCS breaks down garbage using its patented ICARS system, which gasifies the waste and refines the resulting gas using plasma technology.
The synthetic gas created from the waste fuels General Electric Jenbacher internal combustion engines, together with a steam turbine driven by heat recovered from the process and engines, which the company said will produce approximately 15MW of net electricity that will be sold to the grid.
Further to this any residual solids are refined using Plasma to produce slag which meets requirements for a range of applications, including construction aggregates and abrasives.
Moisture in the waste is recovered, cleaned and made available for reuse in the community.
Effective throughput of the facility will be 130,000 tonnes per year.
The company claimed that there are no emissions to atmosphere in the conversion process, with any unused gas sent to a flare. Exhaust from the engines and flare have emission levels significantly below the most stringent standards in the world.
The ICARS modules will be manufactured in Ontario and, according to Plasco, site construction and assembly of the PCS will create about 200 construction jobs.
Once complete the facility will permanently employ 42 operations technicians.
Plasco added that construction and operation of the Facility will be subject to receipt of and compliance with the terms of Environmental Compliance Certificates to be issued by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.
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