Michigan is moving to ban Canadian garbage from the state. Considering truckloads of Toronto’s garbage flows to Michigan every day, now might be a good time for the city to look seriously at new waste-destruction systems, including plasma-based technologies. Toronto is successfully dealing with its organic waste using a combination of anaerobic and aerobic processes, but that’s not enough. Geoff Rathbone, a director of waste management with the city, told me last week there is a Plan B in the event that Michigan closes its border but that plan is so far a well hidden secret.

Closure of the Michigan border to Toronto’s garbage means it will cost the city more to find another location, meaning the economics of alternative waste-destruction systems suddenly become more favourable.

Rob Day’s Cleantech Investing post about Ottawa-based Plasco Energy and its $7.3 million round of financing got me thinking about emerging interest in plasma-arc technology as a clean technology play. There appears to be about five notable ventures in this space, with three coming from Canada (FYI: Plasco’s CEO is Rod Bryden, the former owner of the Ottawa Senators NHL hockey club).

All of these ventures talk of using superhot plasma torches to gasify all kinds of waste, resulting in synthetic gas that can be captured and used to generate electricity. The applications range from waste-destruction on cruise ships and aircraft carriers, to larger systems for hospitals, schools and industrial facilities, to massive systems that could be used by a municipality. Plasco, for example, has proposed a system for Ottawa.

The technology serves a double purpose: keep waste out of landfills in a way considered environmentally acceptable (i.e. its high temperatures make it way better than incineration); and give users of the system a chance to generate their own power or sell it back to the grid. Another added bonus is that the intense heat from this plasma-arc process makes it ideal for getting rid of toxic materials.

In addition to Plasco Energy, the other four are:

Plasma Environmental Technologies Inc. of Burlington, Ont. (slightly west of Toronto) has recently completed its prototype system and signed some early commercial contracts. Read this article from the Globe and Mail’s Jack Kapica for a primer (temporary link, and registration required).

Pyrogenesis Corp. of Montreal started developing its system for cruise ships and big naval vessels. Early test customers include Carnival Cruise Lines and the U.S. Navy, which actually developed the core technology and licensed it to Pyrogenesis for commercialization. The company also has plans to design different versions of its system for hospitals, industry and municipalities. For a good background check out this article I wrote last November. The company has been somewhat quiet since then, but is reportedly developing systems in Ontario and two countries in Europe.

EarthFirst Technologies Inc. of Tampa, Florida, I know less about, but the company appears to be having some success.

Finally, there’s Startech Environmental Corp. of Wilton, Conn., which again I know little about, other than to say it shows up quite frequently in newspaper database searches. It should be noted that Startech announced this week that it raised $22.3 million (U.S.) in financing from Cornell Capital Partners LP.

For a great overview of the many companies offering waste-destruction or management services/technologies — including plasma systems — check out this report that was prepared for the City of Toronto. It’s nearly two years old but is still packed with useful information.

Carmanah has been awarded a contract in excess of $1.5 million by the City of London, England, which has ordered 1,200 solar LED-illuminated bus stops. The product will be installed between October and next March, 2006. This company appears to be on a roll. Its stock has jumped nearly 50 per cent since April and has gained 15 per cent this month alone.

This interesting press release from Toyota Canada, which says it is significantly beefing up its advertising campaign in Canada to explain how its hybrid technology works. The sales forecast for Canada this year: “This year, Toyota Canada’s hybrid sales are pacing ahead of last year by more than 50 per cent,” the company said.

Bill Ford (pictured LEFT), head of Ford Motor Co., gave a speech to company engineers, scientists and other employees in Detroit this morning about where the company is going in terms of innovation. It should come as no surprise that hybrids and alternative fuels are now top priorities for the struggling U.S. automaker (press release here).

This trend toward “green” products, as seen through similar announcements and speeches from GE, Toyota and other big corporate names, is encouraging from a cleantech perspective because it means a greater slice of corporate budgets will be going towards clean technologies.

Hybrid technology is already in Ford’s Escape and Mercury Mariner SUVs, but the company is now going full steam ahead with hybrids and flex-fuel vehicles.

Consider the following comments from Ford:

I’m proud today to announce a ten-fold increase in our commitment to hybrids. In fact, by 2010, more than half of our Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products will have hybrid capability. We’ll have the capacity to produce at least a quarter-million hybrids a year, and the ability to scale up as the market demands…

Our Carbon Offset program will pay for projects around the world that reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the same amount that we emit in the production of our hybrid vehicles. That might mean a methane abatement project in Central America, a tree planting effort in Asia or a wind farm in California that would reduce the amount of CO2 that would normally occur had such projects not been in place…

I am also announcing a Flexible Fuel initiative based upon ethanol. Ford has historically been a leader in FFV’s going all the way back to the original Model T. Over the past quarter century, we’ve put more than one million ethanol capable vehicles on the road in the United States, Brazil and Europe. The recent energy bill in Washington has a provision to encourage the use of ethanol, which is a clean, renewable fuel.

That’s why I’m pleased to announce that we will offer four new vehicles for 2006 that run on a mixture of gasoline and ethanol: the F-150, Crown Victoria , Grand Marquis and Town Car. In all, we will produce approximately 280,000 Flexible Fuel Vehicles in 2006.

In addition, we are working with fuel providers to expand the infrastructure needed to provide ethanol. And we’re going to actively engage customers so they will understand that they have FFV options…

Longer term, people in Ford labs around the world are working hard to develop technologies that provide even more options, such as clean diesel, hydrogen internal combustion engines and fuel cells. It is simply too early to know whether one solution might render the others obsolete.

That’s why our strategy might be termed Aggressive Flexibility; let’s push hard on all of our best ideas to respond as markets and governments make known their preferences…

This, again, is all very encouraging. Good on Ford for seeing the writing on the wall and taking an aggressive new approach… It makes it more clear now why Sierra Club is more willing to give Ford the time of day.