An American company that specializes in combusting municipal waste is eyeing Catalyst Paper Corporation’s Powell River mill site for a potential waste-to-energy facility.
Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Waste Management, Inc., will be participating in Metro Vancouver’s process to have a waste-to-energy facility, a component of its integrated solid waste management plan, which was approved by the province in July 2011. The new facility, which would incinerate post-recycled waste, would have a capacity of up to 500,000 tons a year and will be located either in the Metro Vancouver region or out of the region. A request for proposals is expected to be released this summer, with a short-list of proponents compiled by the end of this year.
Wheelabrator is working with Urbaser, a European-based company, on the concept for a Powell River facility, estimated to be a $400 million project that would generate about 50 megawatts of baseload power. It would generate about 50 to 60 jobs, as well as tax revenues for the city.
Representatives from the companies travelled to Powell River on Wednesday, February 15, to make a presentation to City of Powell River council and staff.
Mark Schwartz, manager of business development for Wheelabrator, told the Peak Powell River is a great location. “It has an industrial base and would lend itself very well to an exciting project like this,” he said. “Powell River seems to have a potential for a future base for a power energy hub.”
There is a chance for cogeneration because of the existing mill, Schwartz said, and opportunities for using steam. “The waste-to-energy power plants that we build are 24-7 baseload power,” he said. “It fits in with the whole out-of-region concept.”
There’s also enough land in the property base, Schwartz said. “The way it’s laid out, a project like this would lend itself very easily into being an anchor to attract other businesses that might need heat and steam, like aquaculture, greenhouses and certain manufacturers like sawmills.”
Mayor Dave Formosa said he told the company representatives that he is interested in the taxes, the jobs and profit sharing. As well, the project would support Catalyst’s operations in Powell River, he added, and council supports Catalyst.
Formosa said the company representatives said they would be spending $400 million and if the community didn’t want them, they don’t want to be here. Formosa said he thinks there should be a three-month lead up to a referendum to find out “whether or not the public wants to embrace the benefits of this project.”
Formosa also said the company representatives like the idea of determining public support quickly. The company would have public presentations about the project leading up to a referendum. “They said they would pay for the referendum, because it would cost $27,000 or $30,000,” Formosa said. “It would be an opinion referendum; it wouldn’t have to be a binding referendum. It would give us a gauge on how our community felt.”
He also believes in the environmental process, Formosa said, that would be part of the project if it went ahead. “We truly, truly, truly need some revenue, some new taxation,” he said.
While the city has a tax revitalization bylaw that sets major industrial taxes at $2.25 million a year, if the project went ahead, it would be added revenue, not incorporated into the bylaw, Formosa said. “We would anticipate more money out of this, not a ride along,” he said. But the city would be willing to negotiate tax rates, he added.
The concept is in early stages and council has not deliberated the proposal yet.
Carlo Dal Monte, Catalyst’s director of energy, said the project is an interesting opportunity, but it’s “very preliminary. It has the potential to have a lot of benefits for the mill itself as well as for the local community."
However, it’s early days, he said. “We’re thinking if we had the plant operational in 2017, 2018, that’s probably an optimistic scenario. The next part for us is how does it fit in with the vision and strategy for the mill six years from now.”
First steps have been talking with some of the stakeholders. The meeting with mayor and council was an introductory meeting to introduce some basics around the concept, he said. “Then we need to start getting more specific around conceptually where it would fit on the site,” he said. “Then we are beginning to evaluate what the potential environmental impacts are and start reaching out to more and more people in the community.”
The basic technical process is that there is a boiler that generates high-pressure steam, Dal Monte explained, which goes through a turbine to generate electricity. “In our case, there may be an opportunity to take some of that steam, use it within our own process and potentially reduce the amount of biomass that we have to burn to supply our own process,” he said. “There are a number of different potential scenarios.”
Catalyst has a fair bit of land and access to the water, Dal Monte added, and the ability to bring barges onto the site.
While Metro Vancouver has an approved solid waste management plan, the process for the waste-to-energy component hasn’t been determined yet, Dal Monte added. “There hasn’t been any clarity about whether they want a request for proposals or request for information,” he said. “We’re still not clear how that would happen. Nor have we received any clarity on whether [it will be] in region or out of region. So they still haven’t finalized those decisions.”
There are a number of proponents that have an interest in participating in Metro Vancouver’s process. Surrey, New Westminster, Burnaby and the Tsawwassen First Nation have all expressed an interest in possibly hosting a waste-to-energy facility.
Wheelabrator is based in Hampton, New Hampshire. It has 17 facilities in the United States, two in China, with five under construction, and two facilities being developed in the United Kingdom. Waste Management is the largest solid waste management company in North America.
Urbaser, which has its headquarters in Madrid, has over 275 separate facilities in 14 countries, primarily in Europe, North Africa and South America.
