Cedar Rapids also open to Plasma Power plant site

Plasma Power has mostly focused on Marion for locating a power plant, but Cedar Rapids also would be interested in being home to a power plant using plasma-arc technology to zap garbage into energy.

Scott Olson - a Realtor with Skogman Commercial who began representing Plasma Power in Cedar Rapids before he won a Cedar Rapids City Council seat in the fall - said Plasma Power has looked at about eight possible sites in Cedar Rapids and three in Marion, and has narrowed its focus to two in Cedar Rapids, one in Marion.

The two in Cedar Rapids are the shuttered Terex Cedarapids plant, 909 17th St. NE, and property owned by Rick Stickle in the industrial area around Cedar Lake, near the Cargill and Quaker plants, the hospitals and Coe College.

Marion City Manager Lon Pluckhahn declined to identify the Marion site, but one possibility has been the city's refuse collection site, 195 35th St.

“It's a willingness to look at it,” Pluckhahn said on why he has been working so hard on the Plasma Power proposal and why the company is huddling with Marion, not Cedar Rapids, right now.

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Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomeranz, however, made it clear that Cedar Rapids is interested in Plasma Power locating there.

“I know they are interested in sites in Cedar Rapids, and we're waiting to hear from them,” Pomeranz said.

Pomeranz visited Plasma Power's test facility in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in late December while on vacation.

Marion's city manager did say the steam heat that the Plasma Power plant would produce - even if the plant is built in Marion - likely would find its best aggregation of customers in the area around Quaker, Cargill, St. Luke's Hospital and Coe College.

All were served by steam from an Alliant Energy coal plant lost in the 2008 flood, and steam lines are still in place, Olson noted.

Pluckhahn said a site in Marion would still be close enough to serve potential steam customers in Cedar Rapids. He said steam lines up to seven miles in length can work.

He plans to present a proposed contract to the Marion City Council on Feb. 23 that will attempt to satisfy a crucial request of Plasma Power - that the city will round up 250 tons of garbage six days a week over some number of years, so the plant has a fuel source.

A year ago, Plasma Power got the outline of a garbage commitment from the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency board. The agency takes in 500 to 600 tons of garbage a day at its landfill on the edge of Marion.

The commitment came with strings. The board wanted Plasma Power to secure environmental permits for its proposed plant; it wanted to know what part of the agency's $38-a-ton tipping fee would go to Plasma Power along with the garbage; and it questioned a 20-year deal that might prevent the agency from taking advantage of a better offer in the future.

Karmin McShane, the Solid Waste Agency executive director, said she hadn't heard from Plasma Power since.

Plasma Power's plans to use plasma-arc technology on such a sizable amount of garbage would be a first in the United States. The company is seeking Iowa renewable-energy tax credits and federal support.

Rob Hillesland, spokesman for the Iowa Utilities Board, noted that Plasma Power's proposal to the state would make it eligible for about $1.3 million in state tax credits annually for up to 10 years.

In its tax-credit application filed in late October, Plasma Power stated that it intended to build a plant in Cedar Rapids at a site “that is yet to be determined adjacent to the Cedar River.”

Marion has championed the plasma-arc technology for several years as it has sought an alternative to expansion of the landfill on the city's edge at County Home Road and Highway 13.

Similar plan rejected in Mason City

The metro area here isn't the only one in Iowa that has been working to sort out a plan for a waste-to-energy plant from an out-of-state firm that has proposed to convert municipal garbage into energy.

The 29-member board of directors of the Mason City area landfill recently rejected a plan from Energy Recovery Specialists LLC of Colorado. The move effectively killed the waste-to-energy proposal there, said Bill Rowland, director of the Landfill of North Iowa.

Energy Recovery Specialists wanted to use the process of pyrolysis, which heats material at high temperatures in the absence of oxygen to produce gases used to turn a turbine to produce electricity.

In the proposal under consideration in Marion and Cedar Rapids, Plasma Power LLC of Florida would use plasma-arc technology to zap garbage in a process that will create steam.

Rowland said his landfill's board of directors ultimately turned down the pyrolysis proposal because of what he said was the “uncertainty of the process,” a consultant's questions, the financial ramifications for the landfill and an unwillingness to commit to a long-term contract that could stand in the way of a better offer with another emerging technology.

“There may be processes in the future where people are actually paying for garbage,” Rowland said.

Nonetheless, Energy Recovery Specialists' proposal had supporters, he acknowledged, including the Mason City City Council and economic development officials.

Supporters, he said, liked the promise of new investment and new jobs that came with the proposed facility.

Rowland said the Landfill of North Iowa has 50 years of capacity in its landfill, which he said is situated in the country three miles from both Mason City and Clear Lake.