Location: PlascoEnergy Trail Road facility

The meeting will take place at the Walter Baker Sports Center located at 100 Malvern Drive in Barhaven.

The PlascoEnergy Trail Road Demonstration Facility Public Advisory Committee (PAC): 

Jan Harder (Chair)

Councillor, Nepean - Ward 3 Barrhaven

• Served on council for 9 years, first for the City of Nepean and since 2000 for the amalgamated city
• Serves on the Planning and Environment and Rural Affairs Committees of Council, the Ottawa Public Library Board, the boards of Hydro Ottawa Inc and Hydro Ottawa Holding

 Vincent Lavoie

VP of IT, Leadmark Consulting

• Active Citizen, West Carleton, including on Carp Landfill Site
• Engineer by training, background in electronics and aerospace

Nancy Davis

Vice-President, Barrhaven Community Association

• 20 years of community involvement in Barrhaven. 
• The owner and project manager, Maillet and Associates, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Firm

Paul Koch

Active Citizen

• Former chair and current member of Ottawa's Environmental Advisory Committee
• Chemical engineer by training with a long history/commitment to the environment
• Shepherded the Environmental Charter for the Ottawa Transition Board in 2000

Brian Finch

President of The Friends of the Jock River

Bill Wong

Program Manager, Renewable Energy and Climate Change Program, SAIC Canada

• Current Chair of the Ottawa Valley Chapter of the International Air and Waster Management Association
• 20 year resident of Barrhaven

Marilyn Harrold

Program Manager Waste Diversion & Processing, Public Works & Services, City of Ottawa.

• Works at the Trail Road Landfill Site
• Professional engineer with over 15 years of environmental engineering experience

Glen Brooks

Councillor, Ward 21 Rideau-Goulbourn

• First elected in 1977 to the Township of Rideau Council
• A strong advocate for rural municipalities interests within the new city
• Retired educator (teacher/principal) and farmer
• Strong commitment to environmental issues including managing the city's bio-solids and a sound approach to application of pesticides 

Kevin Kennedy

Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of Ottawa Faculty of Engineering

• Area of research is Advanced Anaerobic Treatment Technology, including treatment processes related to municipal, agricultural and industrial wastewaters and municipal solid waste.

Terry McIntyre

Chief of the Environmental Biotechnology Applications Division of Environment Canada

• Environmental research scientist
• Over the last thirty years, he has held a number of positions within government and academia and has also worked extensively on a number of international environmental biotechnology projects.

Resources for the PAC

Richard Urbanski, MBA, CHRP  

Senior Air Quality Specialist    

Sense Consultants Limited (Specialists in Energy, Nuclear and Environmental Sciences)

Alisdair McLean

Director of Programs, PlascoEnergy Group

Andrea G. Foottit

Manager, Programs, PlascoEnergy Group

Yes. All questions and answers will be posted within a timely manner and without exception. (Note: Questions with inappropriate language or flaming will not be posted)

1. That is correct. One tonne of waste (with an energy content of 16,500 MJ/T) will yield 1150KWhe plus approximately 150 kg of vitrified slag, 5 kgs of pure sulfur and 1.3 kg of heavy metals and particulate.

2. Availability will increase as the commissioning period is complete. This is the first plant and it is expected that the availability during the second year of operation will be slightly above 92%.

3. All capital and operating risks of the project are assumed by PlascoEnergy. The financial performance of the project is commercially confidential to PlascoEnergy and will not be disclosed. Should the City choose to proceed with one or more commercial facilities, PlascoEnergy will again assume all capital and operating costs and risks and will receive an agreed tipping fee from the City for waste processed. The City has an option, but not an obligation, to contract with PlascoEnergy to build, own and operate a commercial plant to process up to 225 tonnes per day with a tipping fee payable by the City of $50 per tonne. This option is exercisable if the City is satisfied with environmental performance of the demonstration plant, and PlascoEnergy is satisfied with its financial performance.

Material already in landfill will be uneconomical to process, though technically not problematic.  The cost of placing waste in the landfill was already paid, thus any tipping fee to remove that material is additive; open landfill will smell and be very difficult to contain; energy levels in the material will be reduced as it decays and diluted by the sealing soil that is used to manage and seal the landfill, adding to processing costs and reducing net power output.

Contaminated soil could be processed and the contaminants either entrapped in the slag or sequestered in activated carbon. Again, this would be not a technical challenge but uneconomical to process. Contaminated soils contain little to zero energy sources and there for there would be no net power output, in fact it would consume power to process contaminated soils. 

Thank you for your comment. The web script has been fixed and you have been added to the newlist.

1.  Yes, a facility could be built next to an existing landfill; the demonstration plant is located beside the Trail Road Landfill.  The benefit of co-locating at an existing landfill is that waste trucking patterns do not need to change.  However, a community may prefer to have several facilities distributed within a city so that the facilities are located closer to where waste is generated, thereby reducing overall trucking costs and distributing power to local communities.

2. The process is continuous flow. It takes between 30 and 90 minutes for MSW to be converted into cooled and cleaned syngas that is suitable to be fed into the electrical generators to create power (the exact time is proprietary to Plasco)

There would be no need to use salt water for cooling of the facility in a location like Malta.

In areas where water usage is a concern, PlascoEnergy can employ dry cooling to reduce the temperature of the syngas without using water.  The technology will add modestly to the cost of building the facility and will reduce the power available for sale by approximately 5%.  Furthermore, other water requirements of the process could be satisfied by on-site treatment and use of the water that will enter the process in moisture within the MSW.

Thank you for your very thorough question.

Plasco has indeed received approval from the Ontario Ministry of Environment for Certificate of Air and also Certificate of Waste Processing. You will now be able to find both of these certificates on the Get Engaged page of the zerowasteottawa.com site.

Plasco does not have control over what is or is not posted on the EBR. To this end, we will contact the Ministry and forward your concerns.

Thank you for your interest in the project.

Follow Up - May 22, 2007

The Ministry of Environment advised PlascoEnergy that Regulation 253/06 provided full disclosure of the proposed project, and required that the COA be obtained.   Individual EBR publication was not required in light of the EBR publication of the proposed Regulation, and the exemption from the Environmental Assessment Act provided by the Regulation.

Dear Andrew,  

Thank you for your email.  Our Trail Road facility is contracted to receive waste from the City of Ottawa, which as you know does not collect from businesses.  The PlascoEnergy system will certainly cover the type of waste produced by your business and most others in our City.  PlascoEnergy does not intend to enter the waste collection business, but has had initial discussion with companies in that business and with some business waste generators.  We will be pleased to discuss your specific needs with you and will contact you directly.  

Best regards,  

Rod

Material already in landfill will be uneconomical to process, though technically not problematic.  The cost of placing waste in the landfill was already paid, thus any tipping fee to remove that material is additive; open landfill will smell and be very difficult to contain; energy levels in the material will be reduced as it decays and diluted by the sealing soil that is used to manage and seal the landfill, adding to processing costs and reducing net power output.

The decision to recover the land to an environmentally clean condition will depend on value of the resulting land and in most cases the cost is likely to significantly exceed the value.

An update has been added on today, Monday August 13, 2007.

 UPDATE:

The PlascoEnergy demonstration facility at Trail Road processed "surrogate waste" on July 19th.  The operation was very successful in converting the material to gas as planned.  For the next several weeks, PlascoEnergy intends to operate the plant for controlled periods each week to test all aspects of the operation.  During these tests, the gas produced will be processed through an enclosed flare, with emissions monitoring in continuous operation and the results provided to the Ministry of the Environment on a routine basis.  Periodic operation of the engines to generate electricity, and processing of waste, is planned for September.

An update has been added on today, Monday August 13, 2007.

 UPDATE:

The PlascoEnergy demonstration facility at Trail Road processed "surrogate waste" on July 19th.  The operation was very successful in converting the material to gas as planned.  For the next several weeks, PlascoEnergy intends to operate the plant for controlled periods each week to test all aspects of the operation.  During these tests, the gas produced will be processed through an enclosed flare, with emissions monitoring in continuous operation and the results provided to the Ministry of the Environment on a routine basis.  Periodic operation of the engines to generate electricity, and processing of waste, is planned for September.

Good morning,

At this time we are only going to be processing Municipal Solid Wastes - we are not composting, rather converting garbage to a syngas, which will feed gas reciprocating engines.

Regards

Guy LeBlanc

I copy the press release here and you can now find it on our home page.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

PLASCOENERGY DELIVERS POWER TO HYDRO OTTAWA GRID

October 24, 2007 - Plasco Energy Group Inc. ("PlascoEnergy") delivered electricity to Hydro Ottawa yesterday, generated by an engine fueled with PlascoEnergy syngas.  "This is a very important milestone in bringing the PlascoEnergy facility into full operation," Rod Bryden, President and CEO said.  "This demonstrates PlascoEnergy's unique ability to convert waste into gas that runs internal combustion engines. During the next several days we will bring each of the five engines into operation using a mix of waste materials.  We will then implement final system checks and adjustments before receiving household garbage in November."

About PlascoEnergy Group

Plasco Energy Group Inc. (PlascoEnergy) is an Ottawa-based private Canadian company.  PlascoEnergy and its predecessor RCL Plasma, Inc. have operated plasma based R&D and test facilities in Ottawa and Spain for more than a decade.  The Plasco Trail Road facility is a commercial scale demonstration plant using PlascoEnergy proprietary technologies.  This project has been supported by a contribution from Sustainable Development Technology Canada, a loan from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation under its Innovation Demonstration Fund, and the provision at nominal cost of the site and supply of waste during the demonstration period by the City of Ottawa. 

For more information contact:

PlascoEnergy Group  

Rod Bryden (613) 591-9438

CEO

You can find detailed information regarding the Plasco Conversion System on PlascoEnergy's website under the How it Works section: http://www.plascoenergygroup.com .

The Trail Road facility in Ottawa is permitted to process 85 tonnes-per-day and is intended to demonstrate the Plasco Conversion System on a commercial scale.

For more information about the amount of waste generated in Ottawa we suggest you consult the following resources on the City of Ottawa website:

For Industrial, Commercial and Institutional Waste visit
http://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/ici/documents/task2_summary_en.html

For residential waste visit
http://ottawa.ca/city_hall/ottawa_performance/ombi/2005_results/solid_waste_en.html

2.  The syngas developed through the Plasco Conversion System is comprised of approximately 18-20% Hydrogen.

3.  The PlascoEnergy syngas can be used for a variety of purposes other than the creation of electricity. These include heat generation, blending with natural gas or production of ethanol. We are currently focusing our efforts on using our syngas for the creation of electricity in a combined-cycle power plant.

The City of Ottawa might be able to provide more specific information about it's intentions at this time.

Plasco Energy Group's business model to finance, build, own, and operate all facilities ensures there is no capital outlay needed from a municipality or county.

Total operating costs are covered by PlascoEnergy and our revenue model is based on collecting tipping fees and selling the electricity we generate.

PlascoEnergy Demonstration Facility Update- May 2008

The early part of the year was a very busy time at Plasco Trail Road. In February we continued gaining experience running with MSW diverted from the Tail Road Landfill. We continued to gain experience in both handling raw MSW and feeding it into the conversion chamber. In March we had a two week maintenance shutdown where we successfully installed some new equipment that enables us to feed the MSW faster into the system. April brought a time of increased operations and we were able to reach our processing rate of 75 tonnes per day, our regulatory limit.

A number of visits will occur early in May by representatives of communities in discussion toward agreement for PlascoEnergy facilities. In late May we expect to schedule our first source testing in compliance with our Certificate of Air. The Plasco Trail Road Public Advisory Committee will be asked to meet once the source testing data is available. As always, we continue to post our weekly emissions here on this website and are very pleased with the results we have achieved.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and interest!! Right now PlascoEnergy has no plans to go public.

Total operating costs are covered by PlascoEnergy and we do not provide specific operational costs such as maintenance of the torches.

Part of our business model includes the option to build facilities in a modular design. Our demonstration plant in Ottawa, ON is a ‘single string' facility with a capacity of handling 100 tonnes/day. Our commercial facilities will be built as ‘two, three, four or higher string' facilities depending on the amount of waste generated by the municipality per day.

I would encourage the supervisor in the Nevada County to contact us at their earliest convenience, so that we can get an idea of the waste management situation in the Nevada County and whether building a Plasco facility is feasible in that area.

Thank you for your comments. We are as a company, committed to being open and transparent.

In Ontario, the emissions limit for dioxins and furans is 80 pg/m3. When we built Trail Road, we were committed to environmental excellence and we agreed with the Ministry of Environment to go as low as can be measured, which was 40 pg/m3 at the time. Burning clean wood can produce concentrations above 20 pg/m3. That is below the level that used to be considered reliable for state of the art instruments only a few months ago. We are determined that our process will not create these compounds. So we have pushed to find the most sensitive tests with the most modern ability to detect reliably very minute quantities, down to 10 pg/m3, to be sure that no dioxins or furans are produce by our technology.

Environment Canada considers the lowest measure of quantification - the lowest concentration that can be accurately measured - to be 32 pg/m3. Our target remains no dioxins and furans, and we will continue to drive environmental excellence. The Plasco technology is designed so that at no time do the conditions exist that must be present for dioxins or furans to form. But we will also be adding to each commercial system a level of redundant assurance that would remove any of these compounds should they occur in a breakdown. Plasco is also investigating a continuous sampling system for dioxins and furans. Be clear, we will take whatever steps are required to scrutinize our exhaust, publish the results and add "belt and suspenders" backup filtering systems to ensure that performance.

Thank you again for your comments.

A typical commercial facility is sized at 400 tonnes per day which will yield 21 MW.  

Thank you for your support and enthusiasm.

To find out about our career options please go to:  http://careers.plascoenergygroup.com/

Zero Waste means nothing is wasted. We consume more than our share of the world's resources. As society and as individuals we have a moral duty to reduce our garbage to the minimum and recycle all that we can.

People cannot live a day without leaving some garbage behind; leftover food, the finally worn out tooth brush, the wrapper around the cheese, the trimmings and scrap from the products we make or use, and the hundreds of other leftover things from daily life we live and the work we do. Zero waste means every scrap that is no longer useable is recycled or converted to useful products to begin a new useful life.

In a world where energy is a high and urgent priority and where climate change is an imperative, it is wrong to fail to use our leftovers to create green, clean power in the communities where the waste is produced and the power is consumed.

Plasco is dedicated to converting garbage that cannot be recycled into clean, green energy; in plants that fit within the urban communities that produce the garbage and use the power.

When the changes to the CofA Air have been approved by the MOE, I will contact you with the amendments as well as posting them on the site.

About the Sulphur and our Planned Shutdown

The statement from the Engineering Report is "A Cessation of Discharge incident occurred on 15 July 2008 for SO2 at the flare. The incident was reported to the MOE and an investigation of causes was initiated. Corrective actions are being undertaken and the facility has not restarted its operations."

The statement is correct but the interpretation by the caller was not. The investigation referred to in the report was conducted by the company, not by the Ministry. The corrective action was taken and operations were entitled to resume once that action was taken.

Operations were scheduled to be halted from July 16th until early September for previously announced equipment upgrades.

The facts are that the SO2 emission was 14.67 ppmv, which is 0.67 ppmv over the 14 ppmv operational limit set in the Plasco Regulation. The general limit under MOE Guidelines is 21 ppmv. The emission was extremely limited, but Plasco halted operations and reported the incident to MOE. The equipment problem that caused the emission was identified and corrected. There was no MOE action required or taken. The shut down described below was scheduled to begin within a couple of hours and for that reason the plant did not restart as it was fully in position and entitled to do.

The emissions data was posted on the Zero Waste Ottawa website and on July 24th at a scheduled Public Meeting in Ottawa, the emissions data on all emissions was presented and discussed.

Plasco had announced several months ago and frequently repeated in public meetings that two upgrades would be made in the plant: the waste handling and feeding system would be replaced with greater capacity and reliability and the melt chamber to vitrify solid residuals would be replaced with a larger chamber to increase capacity and energy recovery. These were scheduled to be done between July 16th and early September. During that period regular maintenance would also be done. There was no operations in this period, and hence no updates to the emissions data.

The two system upgrades and maintenance were done as scheduled. The plant will return to operation with the enhancements this month and at this time the emissions charts will be updated with the process data.

Thank you for your inquiry.

Plasco's Conversion Process is a net producer of electricity, that is for every tonne of waste processed, we return to the local distribution grid 1.2 MW of power (along with producing other valuable coproducts such as aggregate, sulphur and potable quality water).