C&D World: Intriguing Energy Options

The energy production capabilities of gasification have long intrigued those in the recycling and solid waste industries with unmarketable residual materials, as well as some environmentalists who favor the lack of emissions.

Two companies that have been investing in gasification technologies gave updates of where their efforts stand to attendees of C&D World 2009, which took place March 22-24 at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Fla.

Mark Paisley of Taylor Biomass Energy LLC, Montgomery, N.Y., said his company considers municipal solid waste (MSW) and C&D recycling residues, storm debris, tree trimmings and yard waste all as feedstock for its process.

He said the company’s indirect gasification process, which uses hot sand to heat residual materials, captures 90 percent of the energy value of feedstock. The series of reactors and turbines produces a synthetic gas (syngas) that can ultimately be sold as “green energy” to the power grid in New York state.

Bill David of Ze-gen Inc., Boston, noted that his company’s process uses molten metal (he has used both iron and copper) to make what Ze-gen calls a “high-grade syngas.”

The economics of the process are such, Davis remarked, that if gasification syngas can be even close in price to burning coal and other traditional processes, gasification operators can be competitive by taking part in the carbon emissions trading market.

In terms of using residual materials as a feedstock, Davis said operators “have to be competitive with the landfill,” or those disposing of materials will continue to send waste materials there.

Government policy can make a difference, said Davis, noting that landfill taxes in the United Kingdom helped drive the deployment of gasification and other waste-to-energy technologies in that nation.