Skeptic trashes waste plants

Modern trash incinerators so far don't live up to their hype, says a New York critic who warns Metro Vancouver against spending billions on them.

Paul Connett, a retired chemistry professor recently here for a round of public meetings, calls them "magic machines" that remain unproven.

"It's full of PR bullcrap," he said. "There is no consistent commercial track record for gasification, pyrolysis or plasma arc technology."

Those are among the technologies being pitched to Metro Vancouver by a parade of firms hoping to land a deal to build three to six waste-to-energy plants in the region to consume garbage.

Connett says claims the new technologies are clean depend heavily on expensive air pollution control devices and he predicts any plants will still release some dioxins and particulate.

Even if they can be as clean as a natural gas-fired power plant – the best case scenario – Connett sides with Fraser Valley critics who say any increase in emissions will hurt air quality.

"It's not the kind of airshed where you should be building incinerators," he said.

Metro Vancouver's Cache Creek landfill will be full by 2010 and officials hope waste-to-energy plants can take over by 2015, with garbage exports to the U.S. if necessary until they're in place.

Metro is also pursuing a Zero Waste strategy that aims to boost recycling from 50 to 70 per cent.

One fear is that waste-to-energy plants that are built at great cost will result in more pressure to feed them with trash than recycle.

Connett said the strategy will taint Vancouver's green reputation as a leading recycling centre.

"It sabotages Zero Waste and stops any move to sustainability over the next 25 years," he said. "They're going to fritter away $1 to $2 billion."

He advocates for investing in resource recovery centres, of the sort used in Nova Scotia to sort and harvest materials for recycling and reuse, coupled with intensive composting.

Connett contends waste-to-energy plants destroy usable resources and take pressure off the packaging industry to reform.

Waste-to-energy advocates, however, point to Ottawa, which has just signed a deal with Plasco Energy Group for a waste-to-energy plant.

It promises to process 150,000 tonnes of waste per year using plasma arc technology and produce 21 megawatts of power with ultralow emissions. Permitting and construction is to take two years.

Metro Vancouver environment committee chair Joe Trasolini has visited Plasco's test plant twice and is impressed.

"There are no emissions with that specific plant," he said. "It's completely enclosed. There is no way that anything can escape."

Despite high recycling rates here, Trasolini said the amount of garbage the region produces each year is rising faster than the rate of population growth.

He said no decisions have been made yet on adding waste-to-energy plants.

The region's lone plant so far is located in Burnaby and consumes 270,000 tonnes of garbage per year.

Metro sees future waste-to-energy plants handling a further 600,000 tonnes, while generating power and district heating.

How it works:

Modern waste-to-energy technologies typically involve heating waste in an oxygen-starved chamber so flammable gases are released without actual combustion. The resulting gases are piped away and burned in a separate chamber to drive steam turbines. Since the garbage isn't present where the gases burn, smoke and toxins aren't supposed to be created, as they are in older single-chamber garbage incinerators. Not all waste is consumed – some kind of slag or ash is left behind that must either be reprocessed for other use or landfilled.

jnagel@surreyleader.com