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Too great a leap of faith

No recent Central Alberta project has offered more promise, and delivered more disappointment and frustration, than the Plasco garbage-to-energy proposal.
Our_View_March_2009
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No recent Central Alberta project has offered more promise, and delivered more disappointment and frustration, than the Plasco garbage-to-energy proposal.

Two weeks ago, Plasco finally pulled the plug on the syngas project, after five years of delays and months of rumours. The official reason?

Not enough garbage.

For the man who pushed hardest for this project, that smells of so much garbage.

Former Red Deer MP Bob Mills, a huge proponent of the project, suggested in a letter to the editor in the Advocate on Monday that the project died because the City of Red Deer was only willing to commit 10 per cent of its waste to Plasco.

Plasco, whose targets floated through the five years this project was under discussion, ultimately wanted 200 tonnes a day, or 84,000 tonnes a year.

The nine municipalities that were members of the Central Waste Management Commission abandoned the proposal when it became apparent that they couldn’t close the gap between the 20,700 tonnes they could contribute each year and what Plasco wanted as a minimum to fuel the plant near Penhold.

The city says it couldn’t commit to more because it doesn’t directly control all the waste that comes into its landfill from industrial, commercial and outside sources.

But that doesn’t mean we should abandon the premise that garbage has potential value.

Nor should we abandon the notions that landfills are both unnecessary and environmentally repugnant.

A solid waste master plan is in the works, say city officials, and should be ready in a year.

And when it is in place, it should include a more comprehensive and forward-looking plan for handling waste. City manager Craig Curtis said on Wednesday that the plan will include improved recycling and composting.

And the commission intends to begin looking for other companies interested in turning Central Alberta’s waste into syngas, either with the kind of plasma technology Plasco proposed or through one of the other processes being employed elsewhere in the world.

And when that happens, the members of the waste management commission need to be prepared to offer enough feedstock to support a viable plant. And that means the city will need to start locking up the rights to waste it does not currently control, so it is ready to supply any plant that arrives.

Obviously, volume is an issue; economies of scale apply to all commodities, including garbage.

And both the province and the federal government need to take a more active role in the process — even if it means they simply step forward and endorse or repudiate the technology, so municipalities know if they are wasting their time.

Mills has obviously taken the failure of the project personally, but he shouldn’t.

It would be useful if the experience he gained and the contacts he made could be passed on to the man who succeeded him, MP Earl Dreeshen, and provincial counterparts throughout the region.

Because, ultimately, no waste-to-energy project is going to happen without public money being made available. And plenty of federal (and provincial) regulations will need to be hurdled.

Two months ago we suggested that the delays were political in nature, specific to lack of federal funding support.

It’s apparent now that the Plasco plant was just too great a leap of faith for all involved.

So now we need to restore our faith in alternate waste management and find another solution.

John Stewart is the Advocate’s managing editor.