Ways to fuel plasma arc power plant questioned

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Cedar Rapids-Linn County Solid Waste Agency is wrestling with what role it will play in fueling a first-of-its-kind-in-the-nation plasma-arc power plant that can zap garbage into energy that is proposed by a Florida firm and backed by the city of Marion.

The agency, which takes in about 600 tons of solid waste a day at its two landfills, is seen as a dependable source for the $157 million plant.

The agency, though, uses some of the revenue from its $38-per-ton fee to put garbage in its landfills to support recycling, composting and hazardous waste disposal.

The agency's board of directors must decide what would happen to those environmentally friendly, state-mandated programs if the agency sees much of the garbage it takes in diverted somewhere else.

Marion City Manager Lon Pluckhahn on Tuesday suggested to the board that the agency shouldn't look to extend the life of its landfill on the edge of his city - the other landfill near downtown Cedar Rapids is set to close - by standing in the way of a “better model” for disposing of garbage and turning it into energy.

"Why wouldn't we seek ways to enable that?” he asked the board.

Board members pointed out such discussions can turn complicated.

For instance, the plasma arc “reactor” would be more than able to zap cardboard, but the agency has a cardboard recycling operation that diverts the product to the Cedar River Paper plant in Cedar Rapids, agency board member Pat Ball said.

At the same time, board member Tom Podzimek, a Cedar Rapids council member and strong supporter of environmental issues, suggested it might make more sense to zap plastics in a plasma-arc setup than to go to the trouble of collecting plastics and shipping them elsewhere for reuse, as is the practice now.

Next month, representatives of the firm picked by the city of Marion to build the plasma-arc power plant - Plasma Power LLC of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - will talk to the Solid Waste Agency board.

The city of Marion and a local group of plasma-arc advocates, called wastenotIOWA, have been interested in a plasma arc for six or more years now, ever since the Solid Waste Agency decided to expand its landfill on Marion's border.

The city of Marion with the help of wastenot-IOWA secured a $150,000 state of Iowa grant to conduct a project feasibility study, the findings of which stopped short of recommending the construction of a plant.

Charlie Kress, a Solid Waste Agency board member and wastenot-IOWA board member, called the findings “neutral”; Don Leonhart, another wastenotIOWA board member, said, “neutral on balance”; while Marie DeVries, a planner and contract administrator with the Solid Waste Agency, said the findings called a plant “risky.”

The city of Marion, though, has pushed ahead, sought proposals from firms and picked Plasma Power LLC from among four applicants. Plasma Power LLC has a plan to build what is primarily a natural-gas-fired power plant that would obtain 10 percent of its gas from the zapping of garbage with a plasma-arc torch.

The city of Marion has provided the firm a $95,000 preconstruction grant to help with the multimillion-dollar engineering plans for the proposed plant. Pluckhahn called the city's investment “a token” to show the firm that the city is committed to the project.

On Tuesday, the Solid Waste Agency board discussed Plasma Power's request that the agency agree to divert about 160 tons of garbage a day to the plant, which will have an appetite for 250 tons of garbage every day, seven days a week.

The agency, though, only takes in about 100 tons a day from municipalities in the county, which are bound together by something called a 28E Agreement. The two principal jurisdictions in the agency structure, the Cedar Rapids City Council and the Linn County Board of Supervisors, each would have to amend the 28E Agreement before jurisdictions could divert their garage to a plasma-arc facility.

Karmin McShane, the agency's executive director, noted that the majority of solid waste coming to the agency each day comes from the commercial and industrial sectors, and that garbage nearly always seeks a home with the lowest per-ton cost.