Plasco Energy Group Inc., the plasma gasification company run by former Ottawa Senators hockey club owner Rod Bryden, has started construction of a small energy-from-waste demonstration facility in Canada’s capital. The facility will process enough municipal solid waste (about 84 tonnes a day) to power itself and still feed back 4 megawatts into the Ontario grid. All eyes will be on this demonstration to see whether plasma gasification technology – as opposed to incineration — can cost-effectively turn post-recycled municipal solid waste into electricity while keeping below strict environmental and emissions standards. A successful trial here could finally convince politicians in Toronto to give the technology a chance, as opposed to seeking out temporary landfills to handle garbage that’s currently being trucked to Michigan.

It would be nice to see some kind of comparison between the emissions per tonne of garbage processed by Plasco and tailpipe emissions for every tonne of garbage trucked to Michigan. Factor in the fact that the electricity produced from Plasco’s process means an equivalent amount of electricity not being produced by coal, and it may be that gasification is the cleaner route. Cost then becomes the biggest issue.

On a similar note, a Toronto-area company called Zero Waste Energy Systems Inc. (soon to be acquired by Plasma Environmental Technologies Inc.) announced today that it has partnered with Siemens Canada to jointly develop “small-scale distributed power plants in southern Ontario to run on organic waste fuels.”

Siemens will be in charge of the energy-from-waste infrastructure, project design, project financing and negotiation of electricity sale contracts, and Zero Waste will be responsible for supplying and transporting engineered fuels from biomass feedstock and coming up with optimal fuel blends. “The first plant will be constructed in southwestern Ontario,” the companies said. “It is expected to supply electricity to the grid under Ontario’s recently announced Standard Purchase Offer at 11 cents per kilowatt hour, and thermal power to local agricultural greenhouses at prices significantly below those of fossil fuels.”

I’ll try to get more details on this particular project later, but the idea of small-scale distributed power plants that also combat local waste problems is an intriguing idea and could get around some of the NIMBY issues that larger plants face. I know the jury is still out on whether these technologies work as promised, and while high cost is also an issue, I do think we need to give the plasma gasification approach a chance to prove itself or fail. 

There’s not much news here, but Business 2.0 (via CNNmoney.com) has a write-up on EEStor Inc. today that quotes Ian Clifford, CEO of Feel Good Cars, and a VP at EEStor. As a reminder, Feel Good Cars has the rights to use EEStor’s energy storage system in small and low-speed vehicles. Clifford said FGC will be using EEStor’s technology in its vehicles in 2008, and the EEStor executive confirms that a key focus for the company is to replace the internal combustion engine with its energy storage technology. Other than that, EEStor is very much operating in secrecy and not much additional detail is provided in this article.

I wonder when EEStor plans to come out of the closet?

U.K.-based research firm New Energy Finance has come out with a report focused on China’s clean energy industry and how it’s expected to progress between now and 2020. Among its many conclusions:

* Renewable energy will supply 19 per cent of China’s energy needs by 2020 but it will take 50 per cent more investment than Chinese authorities have budgeted for – i.e. roughly $267 billion (U.S.). The 19 per cent figure is higher than the government’s own target of 15 per cent (as set by the National Development and Reform Commission).

* Biofuels will meet 9.1 per cent of transportation fuel needs over that time, conservation efforts will take off, and as much as 54 gigawatts of wind power — compared to the government’s own 30 gigawatt target — will be supplied.

* China will also make a major push into refining its own solar-grade silicon, and it will install 5.3 gigawatts of solar PV capacity compared to the NDRC’s lower target of 2 gigawatts.

* Biomass power generation will rise from 2.3 gigawatts today to 27 gigawatts, and marine energy (tital and wave power) will even contribute 3 gigawatts.

* Surprisingly, New Energy Finance does not expect hydrogen and fuel cell technologies to move beyond demonstration phase to substantial commercial rollouts before 2020. I say “surprisingly” because China is often considered the first place where hydrogen and fuel-cell technologies will see mass deployment.

“It is common for commentators to regard China and its dramatic economic growth as part of the world’s climate change problem, not part of the solution,” said New Energy Finance chief executive Michael Liebreich in a statement. “China’s growth is allowing it to invest enormous sums in clean energy. We see the Chinese government as more committed than most Western governments — both to rolling out clean energy aggressively domestically and also to building an export industry.”

As promised, here is a link that will allow you to monitor performance — and view Webcam images – of the 100-kilowatt solar system atop the Horse Palace at the Exhibition Place in Toronto. It’s also a good opportunity to tinker with the Web interface provided by Fat Spaniel. Thanks to David Davies at Carmanah Technologies for dropping me the link. For more details about the system check out this recent story of mine in the Toronto Star.

The Worldwatch Institute and the Center for American Progress have released a comprehensive report concluding that the United States, where renewables only represent 6 per cent of total energy, is capable of dramatically increasing that share. The key to doing this is to embrace new clean-energy technologies that are or will soon be economically competitive with fossil fuels. “Despite strong public support and rapidly rising interest in renewable technologies, the U.S. has not kept up with the rapid growth in the sector globally over the past decade,” according to the groups. “If the U.S. is to join world leaders in renewable energy — among them Germany, Spain and Japan — it will need world-class energy policies based on a sustained and consistent policy framework at the local, state and national levels.”