Highlights:
Highlights:
- Cleveland has been exploring the possibility of building a new waste-to-energy gasification plant for the past six years.
- Environmentalists have been challenging the assertion that this is "green" energy and claim that gasification is just another word for incineration. Opponents of the plant point out that building a new incinerator would be much cheaper.
- Planned gasification plant could produce up to 15 megawatts of power. U.S. EPA has noted that, if it operates at planned levels, the facility would qualify as a tightly regulated source of major pollution - an unfavorable designation the city wants to avoid.
- The city found numerous inconsistencies with work produced by a $1.5 million consultant to design and plan the facility. The consultant has been fired and the city is starting over.
From the article:
For years, Cleveland has flirted with a little-known technology for converting garbage into electric power, attracted by the idea of a green alternative to dispatching 230,000 tons of trash to Ohio landfills yearly and relying on coal-fired plants to supply Cleveland Public Power's customers.
The promise of the technology called "gasification" might sound too good to be true; environmentalists have argued that it is.
But the possibility that Cleveland will build a "waste-to-energy" plant at its Ridge Road garbage-transfer station seems to have survived several years of public scrutiny, the crusade of environmental groups and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's declaration that such a project runs the risk of becoming a new major source of pollution for Cuyahoga County.
And though Mayor Frank Jackson's administrators told City Council members in April that they are ready to "hit the reset button" on the plan -- opening the door to new suggestions on how to manage the waste stream or generate energy -- city spokespeople say the mayor still believes in the potential of gasification and isn't done vetting the technology just yet.
