An important meeting concerning the project will be held tonight in Hilo at the county bldg on Kilauea Ave. at 6pm tonight in Ben Franklin room. Seating is limited, get there early!

On KPUA Radio’s Community Forum this morning two representatives were interviewed. Here’s a
quick blogging of what I heard…

KPUA Radio- Can you give listeners a sense of what you were able to take-in at the local mtg in Kona regarding your waste energy technology.

Jack from Wheelabrator Technologies – great opportunity to get out see the people take questions, talk about the project.

KPUA- basics of the project, waste energy facility, tackling a county owned program, to be designed and constructed by Wheelabrator Technologies

• performance guarantees of 20 years of operation, maybe 40 years
• to be located at hilo landfill complex, still two – four years away from implementation
• 85 tons or 35% of total trash on the island will be processed according to a goal set about in 2002
• Wheelabrator Technologies responded to an RFP from county

KPUA- tell us about the Wheelabrator Technology

Jack – They currently have 16 US facilities – 4 are publicly owned

• Wheelabrator has been in operation since 1975 – first facility setup in Boston and is still in operation and will probably last another 10-15 yrs
• Wheelabrator has about a thousand employees around the us

KPUA- some folks at the Kona meeting suggested that waste energy incinerators compete against the technology…

Frank from Wheelabrator Technologies – waste energy and recycling are compatible

• The national recycling average is 35%
• We have a 25-26% recycling rate here on the island…
• The Wheelabrator will make renewable and clean electricity because they are using Hawaiian grown fuel
• 85 thousand barrels per year savings from burning oil here on the island.

Jack – county selects material to bring to Wheelabrator facility from current transfer stations

KPUA – ash left over??? what can be done?

Frank – reduce weight of trash by 75%

• We could landfill the ash by product
• waste energy reducing the volume of waste by 95%
• saves space in landfill
• can use ash as daily cover on the landfill – advantage is that your ot digging up other gravels to for daily cover
• ash is inert, cannot be burned, dries like concrete

KPUA – concern over projected amounts not matching actual performance?

Jack- 520 kilowatt hours have been contracted

• 5.4 megawatts of power providing service to about 5 thousand homes

KPUA- are cost estimates ever accurate?

Jack- at the mtg comparisons weren’t available

• landfill has to be closed at a very high cost
• life-cycle cost will be less expensive due to energy generation

KPUA – is this old technology?

Frank – incinerator is not old burner technology that didn’t make energy

• now have high efficiency boilers
• 27 waste energy plants in us – one in HNL
• in Europe over 400 water energy plants
• Denmark recycles 50% the other 50% goes to waste energy plants since 1950
• imported their technology originally from Switzerland
• Netherlands can’t afford landfills

KPUA- can we get to 50% like some european

Jack- difficult to get to 50% recycle

KPUA- finance committee mtg is it typical???

Jack – typical, people here are much more direct

• lots of examples in Florida (11 facilities) many similarities
• key thing about the contract – first 6 months the numbers will be refined to negotiate an energy contract to help refine costs
• 3 months later accelerated track to bring back environmental issues costs
• so 9 months later the contract can be cancelled
• millions have been spent already by the county to get to this point

KPUA- large financial loss to wheelabrator

Jack – will spend a million to get started

• 250k allowed to bring county consultants up to speed on technology

KPUA – all proposals that came back were waster energy

Jack – county went through methodical process

• set simple criteria
• had to reduce material going into landfills
• had to be offered by a company with a track record
• commercially proven technology
• works from day one, something that works

KPUA – thank you both for joining us on community forum

Jack- thank you look forward to meeting everyone

Frank – thanks

External resources compiled by Green Collar Technologies

Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. | A Waste Management Company

Garbage to energy plant for Big Island
Posted on: Wednesday, March 5, 2008  By Kevin Dayton Advertiser Big Island Bureau

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