Waste to Energy Tech News

Leadership Note

By Tom Henderson, Principal Management Consultant, Waste-to-Energy Practice , ARACDIS-US, West Palm Beach, Florida

Members of the Waste-to-Energy Technical Division were well represented among attendees, presenters and exhibitors at WASTECON 2013 held in Long Beach, California, from September 16-19. The Division sponsored a full slate of workshops and presentations during the four-day conference. First up was a full-day workshop titled “Implementing An Energy-from-Waste Project” on Monday. This was the second year for this workshop designed to introduce major elements required to develop a successful WTE project targeted to a general industry audience.

On Tuesday, a “Mega Session” on Waste Conversion Technologies featured three speakers discussing gasification projects now in development which have the potential to use parts of the municipal waste stream as feed stock. The Enerkem Biofuels Facility under construction in Edmonton, Alberta, is slated to produce 10 million gallons of methanol and ethanol from non-recyclable/non-compostable municipal solid waste. It is the latest in a decade-long collaboration between Enerkem and Edmonton to develop and scale up this technology.

The second presentation discussed was a municipal waste plasma arc gasification facility planned by Plasco Energy in Ottawa, Ontario. The final presentation was on the INEOS Bioenergy Center in Vero Beach, Florida, which converts agricultural and urban wood wastes to methanol and ethanol through a gasification/anaerobic fermentation process. INEOS started up in late 2012 and has plans to process some municipal wastes in late 2014.

Several technical sessions on Wednesday and Thursday featured speakers discussing plans for other alternative waste conversion technologies being considered in California and New York. On Thursday afternoon, one of several WASTECON group sessions led by members from the International Solid Waste Association featured five WTE consultants and equipment system manufactures from Denmark.

The division meeting Wednesday afternoon was led by new Division Director Tom Reardon, who reported on division business, announcing the election of Peter Chromec of Hitachi Zosen Inova U.S.A. to the post of Division Vice Director. The position of Division International Board Representative is still vacant. See the following newsletter article. Membership in the Division increased slightly over the last year from 335 to 339.

Nomination forms for 2014 Excellence Awards will be available in January.

The next Technical Division meeting will be held in conjunction with the North American Waste-To-Energy Conference, May 7-9, 2014, in Reston, Virginia. See “Events and Networking” in this newsletter for the call for presentation proposals.

WASTECON 2014 will be held in Dallas, Texas, from August 26-28.

Comments or questions on this article can be directed to Tom Henderson at tom.henderson@arcadis-us.com or 561-697-7017.

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Also in this edition of Waste to Energy Tech News:

• Tech Division Elections
• Congratulations, Award Winners!
• Legislative and Regulatory Report
• Welcome, New Members!
• MySWANA Community
• Call for Proposals: NAWTEC 22
• Symposium on the Future of Energy Recovery from Wastes
• Inaugural Renewable Energy from Waste Conference
• SWANA-Certified Instructors Needed
• Certification Recognition
• SWANA Remembers
• Florida Chapter News
• AAEES Chooses SWANA Member for Recognition
• SWANA Member Seeks Feedback on Engineering Consulting Service Quality
• SWANA Member Authors Book

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