In 2018, the CRD established an Integrated Resource Management (IRM) committee and issued a Request for Proposals from practitioners to apply the approach to waste management throughout the Region.
Despite receiving many valuable proposals, the CRD Board cancelled the Project and the committee has not met in over four years.
Integrated Resource Management considers waste as a potential resource that has value in various uses. The approach is focused on obtaining optimum social, environmental and and economic benefits from reusing waste.
It is directly aligned with the concepts of a circular economy where all resources are reused and with zero waste where less than 10% of all waste is diverted to the landfill.
Both the CRD and most Greater Victoria municipalities have formally embraced these two concepts in various plans and policy statements.
In 2019, the Township of Esquimalt, with public persistence, declared a climate emergency and decided to initiate IRM to recover resources from thermal conversion of its municipal solid waste (MSW) as a pilot project.
The initial report of the consultants hired by the Township – Pivotal IRM – indicated that the project was potentially feasible, but suggested that a more detailed business case analysis was required to manage risks. There was over 85% public support for the project.
The draft business case was completed in May 2022, but Council did not release the report until September 2023, after it had conducted an independent assessment by different engineering consultants. Though the other consultants and staff recommended that the IRM project be cancelled, at the urging of the public interest groups, Council sought clarification from the CRD that a motion passed in 2022 to grant Esquimalt $50,000 for testing municipal solid waste in an advanced, fossil-fuel free gasifier be approved.
The CRD Board has been challenged by a number of public interest groups regarding the potential land disposal of biosolids from its liquid waste treatment plant. These biosolids are the dried residual of the sludge from the treatment plant. They contain a number of residual chemicals known as ‘forever chemicals’, which never breakdown in the environment.
The BC Ministry of Environment regulates the disposal of biosolids and requires that this process meets rigorous environmental standards and that there is beneficial use, i.e. there is some form of resource recovery. The principal approaches for beneficial use are composting as a soil fertilizer or use as a renewable fuel in the cement making process to replace fossil fuel based natural gas.
The CRD banned composting biosolids in 2011 and contracted with Lafarge Cement in Richmond to use biosolids as a fuel supplement. Unfortunately this contract proved technically unfeasible.
CRD has deposited biosolids at Hartland Landfill for the past year in non-compliance with the beneficial use clause required by BC Environment. Recently the CRD has shipped the biosolids to be stockpiled at a site in the Nanaimo Regional District where they could be used as a soil conditioner.
The CRD Board issued a Request for Expressions of Interest for the thermal conversion of biosolids in gasifier technology as one of its long-term solutions. The CRD will consider the responses to this request in the near future.
Meanwhile, the CRD Environmental Services Committee approved Esquimalt Council’s request for the $50,000 grant on November 15, 2023. The CRD Board will finalize this decision on December 13.
The advanced gasifier is not incineration. It uses heat to convert waste into two outputs: a gas and a solid known as biochar. The gas, which is renewable and made up of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and other volatile gases can replace fossil fuel -based natural gas for space heating and hot water. Biosolids can be used in a number of ways including as either a nutrient-based soil conditioner, an additive to strengthen cement or asphalt or as a fuel for the cement industry. There is a growing market for biochar totaling over $4 billion worldwide with almost 40 per cent of the market in North America.
Both Esquimalt based public interest groups—Creatively United for the Planet Society and the Esquimalt Climate Organizers (ECO) presented to Esquimalt Council in October on ways to reduce risks associated with the gasifier technology. Despite its potential, there are currently no operational gasifiers processing municipal solid waste in North America, though they are common in Japan and South Korea.
The key to managing risk is to test municipal solid waste in an accredited, advanced gasifer to determine the potential to store carbon, create marketable biochar and methane-free gas, store carbon and provide real data for meeting BC Environment’s regulatory standards and determining the potential for the private sector to build and operate a gasifier based on the completed business case analysis.
We are facing both a climate emergency and a rapidly filling Hartland landfill as per capita waste disposal for the CRD region has increased to over 450 kg per year – well in excess of the target of 250 Kg per year set out the CRD Solid Waste Management Plan. Recently the CRD Board approved almost $11 million for expansion of the landfill due to increased rates of waste disposal. There is a potential to reduce carbon emissions in Esquimalt by between 27 and 45% and MSW by 94% through gasification and recycling.
Time is of the essence. It is vital that Equimalt Council use the funds from CRD to undertake the testing and complete its business case analysis. Following the testing, Council should convene a public workshop to ensure all parties to the decision are aligned together with public support to implement the project.
IRM is an essential ingredient for net zero carbon and zero waste. Communities cannot achieve their climate and waste management goals without it.
The public interest groups will be attending Esquimalt Council meeting when it considers how to use the CRD grant and urge that the testing be undertaking without delay for the benefit of the entire region. Stay tuned.
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Dr. Jonathan O’Riordan, now retired, was a former Assistant Deputy Minister of the BC Ministry of Environment (1989-2001); and Deputy Minister of the BC Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management (2001-2004). He has drafted the Provincial government policies supporting zero waste management through Integrated Resource Management and carbon reduction and recycling.
Gasification and Pyrolysis: Incineration by Different Names—No Matter What You Call It, Burning Trash Creates Harmful Pollution
https://www.clf.org/blog/burning-waste-bad-idea/
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Thank you for your comments Larry.
We appreciate the amount of research you have included in your response.
We have sent your comments to a technical expert in gasification and will forward his comments to you in the next few days.
Dear Larry
I have been asked by Frances Litman to respond to your concerns about the gasifier technology that was described in the recent posting on Integrated Resource Management (IRM).
I am a strong supporter of IRM as it constitutes a circular economy where all waste is reused as a resource just as nature has taught us. In my mind, we cannot get to zero waste and net zero carbon emissions without the circular economy. Both the CRD and the Township of Esquimalt have declared climate emergencies and so need to implement IRM to meet these essential objectives.
I view gasifier- based IRM as carbon recycling rather than energy production. There is an enormous difference between incineration and gasification. Incineration (800-1000˚C) is similar to an open fire (450˚C) and is technically an oxidation (burning) process which requiring excessive amounts of oxygen and when burning it destroys the solid material converting it into heat and ash with lots of air emissions associated with contaminants. This is because the production of contaminants is soley due to incomplete combustion which is a common situation with incineration of solid waste. These contaminants can be those identified in your article. We know that, in general, the public do not like incinerators because of their record of releasing these toxic emissions.
Pyrolysis and gasification are different but they are both separate sub-processes of the complete combustion process discussed above. Gasification and pyrolysis must be undertaken in a zero or very low oxygen environment, otherwise they will spontaneously burst into flames (combustion). Pyrolysis requires temperatures in the range of 250-400˚C which produces a pyro-gas consisting of VOC’s and tars, carbon based liquids (oils), and biochar. Due to its nature as a reduction process, pyrolysis does not produce large volumes of air emissions and when combusted in a specially designed thermal oxidizer air emissions should be totally manageable with proven air emissions control systems.
Gasification is carried out at higher temperatures between 450 – 800 ˚C but requires a gasification agent like steam, to catalyze the gasification process, to produce synthesis gas (hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, VOC’s) and biochar. Like pyrolysis, gasification is also a reduction process that produces syngas and biochar. The syngas is also often also converted into heat via a high efficiency thermal oxidizer with low air emissions and flyash.
Gasification processes can be controlled to eliminate hazardous materials. Air emission scrubbers, and electrostatic precipitation filters are used to clean air emissions before they are released from the stack. Contaminated biochar, which has not been properly produced, can be fixed by qualified operators. If heavy metal concentrations in biochar exceed soil standards, they should not be used as a soil amendment – there are several uses that are not dependent on the heavy metal content and which can be safely used to protect the environment, for example in the cement making process.
The economic viability of a gasification facility should be clearly determined before commencing development. The system described in the Creatively United newsletter does just that, it runs numerus financial scenarios to determine the limits to economic viability and improves the integrated viability of the system so that issues do not arise unexpectedly.
In addition, testing of samples of municipal solid waste can be modelled to determine the potential carbon reductions and carbon credits that can be achieved. There is no other technology for complete waste management that compares to gasification of waste on all accounts.
As noted, gasification should be considered primarily as carbon recycling technology. The synthetic gas is considered to be renewable with fossil free carbon and can be recycled as a heating source for operating the gasifier and for space heating nearby buildings. Biochar is a classic carbon sink for all carbon embedded in the waste stream.
I hope this note gives you a better understanding of the differences between incineration and gasification. Creatively United will never support incineration but does support a purposeful analysis of gasification through testing and public discussion to ensure that it is in the best interests of the public before any final decisions are taken.
Jon O’Riordan