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Waste-to-energy project targets Borderland
Date: 7/12/2006
by Paul Lundgren
One man’s trash is another’s treasure, so they say. A proposed plasma gasification plant in International Falls could convert municipal solid waste into energy and slag, with minimal emissions, while turning a profit, backers say.
The $30-million Renewable Energy Clean Air Project (RECAP) has brought together a handful of private interests with county, state and federal agencies. The goal: develop what may be the first of many waste-to-energy plasma gasification operations across rural America.
As Koochiching County District 5 Commissioner Mike Hanson sees it, the project will be a “win-win-win,” saving money the county spends on tipping fees, creating 15 jobs and preventing the land filling of solid waste.
“Because of the potential to be environmentally correct, there are a lot of proponents at this time,” Hanson said.
Whether the project will be profitable is a subject he won’t touch until a feasibility study is completed at the end of the year.
John D. Howard and Stephen W. Korstad, principals of Coronal, the project’s architects, are confident the plant would generate solid returns for its owner, Koochiching County. They point to four key sources of revenue:
• Tipping fees. Instead of continuing to pay about $550,000 annually in tipping fees and transportation costs to the Mar-Kit Sanitary Landfill in Hallock, MN, Koochiching would be recipient of tipping fees from across the region.
• Sale of biofuels. When exposed to the plasma gasification torch, organic materials would gasify into hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which could be refined to produce pure hydrogen, biodiesel, alcohol for E-85 production or an industrial gas similar to propane.
• Sale of steam and electricity. Large quantities of steam would be produced during the gasification process, with the torch operating at about 20,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Sale of tile, rock wool, etc. Inorganic materials would be vitrified by the torch into a molten slag. The slag could be further processed into road aggregate, bricks or similar construction materials.
“We’ve got enough sources of revenue that the feasibility study will show that this will fly,” said Steve Kluess, coordinator of Laurentian Resource and Conservation Development, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that launched the RECAP initiative five years ago.
“People are starting to see that municipal solid waste has value,” he said.
Where will the solid waste come from and who will buy what the plant produces? Howard and Korstad said there has been plenty of interest, and commitments are just around the corner.
“Everybody is waiting for the feasibility study,” Howard said. “That is the major hurdle. Once we have that we will definitively know the viability of this project.”
Howard said Minnesota Power and Boise Cascade both have expressed interest in buying the byproduct electricity. Depending on the plant’s location, Korstad said it also might power an industrial processing plant built nearby, or the proposed expansion of Falls Memorial Hospital.
A $300,000 grant from USDA’s Rural Economic Development and Grant Program to pay for the feasibility study was applied for in June, Kluess said. A response is expected by August. If funded, the study would be completed by December.The plasma gasification process boasts a number of environmental benefits, most notably the ability to eliminate land filling. It differs from incineration, which emits more significant air pollution and creates an ash residue containing leachable pollutants.
During plasma gasification, waste materials are not burned. They’re fed into an oxygen-deprived vessel and heated by a plasma torch until they’re broken down into simple molecules. The process does result in some emissions, but Howard said the plant will be well within the Kyoto Protocol, which sets more stringent standards than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“No facility will have zero emissions,” he said. “But our tailpipe will be cleaner than any facility of this nature.”
The proposed plant would handle 36,000 tons of municipal solid waste per year.
“Feedstock availability is not an issue,” Kluess said.
Korstad said verbal commitments so far, from a 14-county region of Northeastern Minnesota, add up to more than 90,000 tons annually — nearly three times what is sought.
“There’s also a huge interest on the other side of the border,” Howard said, referring to Canada.
A few plasma melting plants already operate in the United States, but Kluess said all are being used to destroy waste, not to produce energy and value-added products.
Los Angeles County is considering a similar plant to the one planned in International Falls, so RECAP might not be the first U.S. waste-to-energy plasma gasification facility.
Japan has been the leader in plasma gasification technology. In 2002, Hitachi Metals built a plant in Utashinai that produces about 8 megawatts of electricity as a byproduct of torching auto waste.
Kluess pitched the idea for the RECAP project to four other Minnesota counties: Cook, Itasca, Lake and St. Louis. Koochiching alone expressed interest.
“They spoke up,” Kluess said. “The project fit their needs.”
“International Falls isn’t going to be solely known as the icebox of the United States,” Howard said. “Hopefully, it will be recognized as a technological innovator.”
Four Borderland locations are being considered for the plant. Two are on Boise Cascade property on either side of the paper mill. Another is a foreign trade zone south of Ranier overpass that could be used to develop an industrial park powered by the plasma gasification plant.
The fourth is about one and a half miles south of Rainy River at the county’s solid waste operation on Highways 11-71.
The 2006 Minnesota State bonding bill appropriated $2.5 million to Koochiching County to design, construct and equip the plasma gasification plant. Another $7.5 million in state funding is still needed.
In April, the Koochiching County Board of Commissioners voted to apply for $9.95 million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds from the IRS for capital expenditures to be incurred by the county for the project.
The federal government is expected to chip in as well. RECAP is seeking $10.35 million from five U.S. agencies.
According to materials prepared by USDA’s Laurentian affiliate, the plant’s annual revenue is expected to be about $3.5 million, with $1.6 million in expenses. The Laurentian timeline has site preparation for the plant set to begin this fall, with construction throughout 2007 and operations getting underway no sooner than fall 2008. Kluess said that timeline may be optimistic.
Korstad said Coronal will stay attached to the project for about four years, recording data to more effectively replicate the project in other parts of the country.
Howard and Korstad formed Coronal in 2005. Howard is president of Distributed Generation Solutions, an energy consulting firm in Mendota Heights, MN. He worked for Honeywell for 17 years, serving as the principal business development lead for the Global Controls Laboratory during his last five years.
Korstad is founder of Korridor Capital Holdings, a family-owned commercial real estate and energy development company in St. Paul. He has been the corporation’s president and chief executive for 20 years.
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