TRUDY BEYAK

Black Press

The Fraser Valley is facing a potentially frightening future, warn scientists.

There are good scientific reasons for people to oppose Metro Vancouver’s plan to burn more than one million tons of garbage a year, said Dr. Paul Connett.

Incinerators and waste-to-energy facilities produce the most poisonous and harmful toxins known to mankind and trash is the dirtiest fuel that can be burned by any power station, said Connett, a leading U.S. expert on waste incineration.

The harm will likely be most injurious to Fraser Valley residents, he said, because pollutants tend to get trapped in the eastern end of this confined air shed where people will be forced to breathe the toxins.

Mercury, furans, dioxins, and nano particles are among the many pollutants in the chemical mix that will likely cause people in the Fraser Valley to become very sick – especially children and seniors, Connett said.

He is known as one of the foremost scientists in the world, having devoted more than 20 years to researching waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerators and power stations and the latest and newest version, called plasma arc gasification WTE facilities.

Connett is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Saint Lawrence University in New York.

Metro Vancouver politicians – despite the long history of air quality problems in the Fraser Valley – have decided to consider incinerating garbage in the proposed Waste-to-Energy facilities, instead of sending the wastes to the landfill in Cache Creek.

Proponents, on the other hand, say the WTE facilities are not incinerators and don’t pollute the environment (sidebar on technology).

Connett said the corporate claims are pie-in-the-sky.

“It’s all rhetoric, based on nothing, but a wing and a prayer,” he said.

Metro Vancouver is proposing to burn up to 30 per cent of the estimated 3.6 million tons of garbage produced each year- including plastics, styrofoam and bio-hazardous wastes – in three to six proposed WTE power stations to be built in the Lower Mainland.

Connett said the plan should raise red flags to local residents.

First of all, he said, the plasma arc gasification technology boasted as one of the waste-to energy options under consideration is experimental and does not have a proven track record for success in any large commercial operation anywhere in the world – contrary to what the proponents may claim.

“It’s pure seduction,” Connett said.

“Laziness is the only reason it’s gotten approval from your politicians who refuse to look at the scientific facts,” he said, noting that in some cases in the U.S. there have been financial kickbacks from corporations to bureaucrats pushing this unproven technology.

Connett said the waste-fired power plants will most certainly emit air pollution when burning the gas to produce electricity.

Nano-particles are among the emissions proven to cause serious health problems, he said.

It’s sad to think that unregulated nano-particles (ultra-fine toxic particles) from the incineration – which will be done at these waste-to-energy power stations when the gas is combusted – would float straight up the eastern Fraser Valley, especially during summer weather inversions, Connett said.

“And, these nano-particles,” he said, “are so tiny, they go straight into your lungs, your blood, your brain, affecting all of the tissues in your body.”

In addition, dioxins and furans interfere with fetus development and the slag or fly ash from incinerators is extremely toxic, contaminated with heavy metals, such as lead, arsenic and mercury, Connett said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notes that dioxins travel long distances in the atmosphere and are found in plants, water, soil, animals and humans. They are a human carcinogen, causing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and cancers of the liver, lung, stomach and connective tissues. There is no safe level for exposure to dioxin.

It’s not only harmful to humans, but to the environment and the entire food chain.

Dr. Elaine Golds, a research scientist with a PhD in biochemistry and an award-winning conservationist in Metro Vancouver, said gasification and incineration are similar processes, since both utilize high temperatures to burn garbage or vaporize it into a molecular state.

She was formerly a professor at McGill University.

In studying PlascoEnergy Group’s WTE gasification plant proposal, Golds said she found that “the technology has been tried and has failed in many places across the world and any claim of zero emissions by proponents is misleading at best.”

One of the few operating waste-to-energy plants in the world, a 280-ton-a-day facility in Japan, produces very little electricity, but certainly produces a lot of carbon dioxide and other emissions, Golds explained.

Incineration makes no sense at all in the Lower Mainland, she said, because the B.C. government’s goal is to reduce greenhouse gases by 33 per cent by 2020.

Golds said it is extremely galling to the public when companies make unsubstantiated claims about their air emissions.

Plasco, for example, has not backed up any of their claims with verifiable scientific data, she said, adding that the claim that it won’t produce dioxins, for example, is simply rubbish and is contradicted by information presented by their own CEO.

“When you burn municipal wastes, you are burning Number 3 plastics, you are burning polyvinylechlorides (PVCs), which are extremely toxic and produce dioxins,” she said.

Metro Vancouver’s plan requires approval from the provincial government.

‘Nanoparticles cause irreversible brain damage’

A scientist is warning the public that nanoparticles emitted from waste-to-energy (WTE) power plants may pose unacceptable human health risks.

Nanoparticles – some of the most toxic substances known to mankind – will certainly be emitted by the proposed WTE power stations if the provincial government allows Metro Vancouver’s plan to proceed, said Dr. Paul Connett, a leading researcher on waste management processes.

“Nanoparticles will wreak irreversible damage on millions of citizens including the possibility of irreversible brain damage,” he said.

Since nanoparticles are smaller than one micron thick – and may be contaminated by mercury and other deadly toxins – they go directly into the blood stream, harming every organ in the body, including the brain, explained Connett, a chemistry professor and leading researcher on incinerators and WTE facilities.

Children are particularly vulnerable to nanoparticles, Connett said.

Once nanoparticles cross into the brain, the mental capacities of children are decreased and they experience behavioral problems, he said. In addition, nanoparticle contaminants in the human brain increases the rate of Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia.

Connett said he was really shook up when he first learned of the toxicity and the pathology of nanoparticles on the health of people.

“The human body has no defence against nanoparticles and the most toxic nanoparticles in the world are produced by trash incinerators and that’s what WTE power stations are.”

Connett also warned that the environmental standards for dioxin is another big problem in B.C. which allows concentrations of dioxin in the environment ten times higher than other jurisdictions in the U.S.

Connett said Metro Vancouver needs to reverse their decision.

“They need to consider the precautionary principle.”

Nanoparticles are super fine particles 80,000 times tinier than the width of human hair and are inhaled into the lungs and transported by the bloodstream into the brain.

Researchers have found that people in the lab who inhale radioactive ultrafine carbon particles display traces of it in their bloodstream not long afterwards. While the particulate level in the lungs of rats decline after six or seven days, levels in the brain remain stable.

Nanoparticles are formed during high temperature burning, combustion, pyrolysis and gasification.

They are also found in fuel additives, the manufacture of stain-resistant fabrics, strengthening components in sports equipment, semiconductors, the cosmetic industry, medicine and various chemicals.

Fancy name for garbage-burning power plants

Can you burn trash and produce power without polluting the environment?

Every company’s claim of “zero emissions” has proven untrue, said Dr. Paul Connett, a leading scientist and researcher.

“This is not some magic machine,” Connett said.

PlascoEnergy, for example, claims it is the only company in the world that can convert municipal solid waste into a clean gas (called syngas) which will, in turn, be burned by internal combustion engines to produce electricity.

Connett calls their claim of “zero emissions” a lot of hot gas.

The important point to understand is that the company is going to spew air pollution out of the emission stacks, because it will burn syngas to produce electricity – and that’s a scientific fact, Connett said.

This is nothing but a glorified power station that is fueled by garbage – whether the wastes are incinerated in the first stage of the operation or burned as a gas in the second stage – it doesn’t matter, it’s still burning garbage, Connett said.

The only question is how much air pollution will be generated, because Plasco has not provided independent scientific modeling, said scientist Dr. Elaine Golds, who has a PhD in biochemistry.

It is disturbing that Metro Vancouver is considering incineration at all, Golds said.

There is another curious twist, Connett said, noting that Plasco doesn’t show any pipes coming out of its project diagrams.

There must be smokestacks to release emissions from the burning of the gas and also a tailpipe in the first stage of the conversion operation to release the gases in case there is a blockage in the lines to prevent an explosion, Connett said.

He said the company is trying to do a good PR job by saying they’ll emit zero emissions.

It’s not true, the scientist said.

Emissions from the combustion stage will certainly contain toxins, including nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, particulate matter, cadmium, lead and mercury, he said, which are very difficult to contain.

Plasco, which has a pilot project in Ottawa, states on its website that it will emit some contaminants, but at concentrations which are well below Ontario’s emission limits.

Connett pointed out, however, that there is little to no monitoring data to support the company’s statements.

Plasco’s claim of “success” is ill founded, because it is only based on a small demonstration project in Ottawa, Connett said.

The company has not treated a large amount of trash at the facility. In fact, half of the garbage was sorted out and removed and didn’t go through the plasma arc process, Connett said.

The company also has done very little environmental testing, according to Rod Muir, a spokesman for the Sierra Club of Canada.

“Our review of the monthly engineer’s report notes that the pilot project only operated at 10- 20 per cent capacity or less – not more than 14 tons of trash a day versus the anticipated 75 tons,” Muir said.

The technology is a highly inefficient means to make electricity, he said. For one thing, it takes a lot of electricity to create the plasma arc heat in the first place to burn the wastes and it’s very costly – $150-$250 – a ton of waste, according to Muir’s estimates.

“Basically, they’re zapping the garbage with energy that’s supposed to be super-heated like the power of lightning, so, of course, the company is going to require a great amount of electricity to create that much energy,” Muir said.

And, that’s only for the conversion stage. The combustion stage is the other problem, he said.

When the facility actually burns syngas to create electricity, the company generates air emissions that are precursors to smog, Muir said.

He down-played the significance of Ottawa’s decision to give Plasco the go-ahead to build a large Waste-to-Energy facility.

“The Ottawa deal is completely conditional on the company’s performance,” he said, adding that Plasco hasn’t been doing that well in that regard.

“Waste-to-energy is a myth, it’s nothing more than a myth.”

Connett also questioned the company’s claims that it can sell the end by-products, because the salt will likely be contaminated and the sulphur may contain mercury.

“There are huge questions to be answered, because most of the promotional material is just a bunch of hype.”