Allentown's Waste To Energy Foolishness Part 2

On December 19, 2013 'Molovinsky On Allentown' brought up the subject of Allentown's waste to energy project. The post features a comment by Rich Fegley submitted to an earlier post..

In response I shall repost earlier articles I once published here, but had since removed.


Reposted From 11/22/2012On Saturday, November 17, 2012 I posted about The Argonne National Laboratory developing a mobile reactor energy from poop. Now word comes that Microsoft plans to build data center in Wyoming that runs on human and animal poop. The method they are using will "extract methane from wastewater. Then chemically turn the biogas into electricity".

Let's compare this to Allentown's waste-to-energy experimental project and the differences between the two. And there are vast differences.

First off Microsoft is footing the bill. No taxpayer money will be used. At the end of a year and a half Microsoft then will deed it over to city of Cheyenne at no cost. One of the most other significant difference is this waste-to-energy plant will cost only $5.5 million. Granted it is expected to generate only about 200,000 watts while Allentown's is expected to generate 833,050 watts if all goes well.

Forget for a moment who's funding it since we don't have Microsoft picking up the tab. Let's just compare the project costs in of itself. Allentown's will cost $35 million. To do any sort of comparison it could be said Microsoft would have to build about 5 of these, which would surpass the output of Allentown's by 167,950 watts. The price tag for all five would total up to $27.5 million. about $7.5 million less. One could argue that money will be made up redirecting our solid waste and sludge to the power plant rather then incur those costs making it a wash.

HOWEVER.. according to the contract dated March 29,2012 Schedule- 5.2(8) Allentown's operating fee for the generator will be $5,885,000 per year. Going up 2.21% each year thereafter.

Allentown's 2013 budget for the solid waste fund is $20,377,861. Over half of that cannot be eliminated even if the generator is successful because it goes towards salaries, maintenance, etc. That's still about $10 million.

For the Sewer fund in 2013 $17,723,984 is allocated. Again much of that cannot be eliminated either. $1,280,000 is allocated for debt service. Another $8,097,442 for salaries, pensions, repairs, etc. That's less then half that could be eliminated as well. About another $10 million.

Let's do a little math assuming the power plant fully succeeds. Assuming my figures from above, we'd still need to spend about $20 million for solid waste and sewer. Plus the additional $5.885 million operational fees. That's about $25 million. This then comes in about a $3 million dollar savings over the 2013 budgeted allocations.

But that's not the whole story. According to the contract (item 6.1.7.1) In the event Allentown exceeds it's tonnage we must shell out $68 per ton increasing by 2.21% each year. The generator operators get to sell any and all electricity produced (item 6.2.2). However (item 6.2.3) says Allentown's usage fee will be reduced by whatever price they get for selling it. At the time of the contract that was assumed to be 12 cents per kilowatt. Today's electric retails just over 7 cents. So cut that expectation in half.

Then There's All Of ThisOn Friday, March 2, 2012 I Posted "Is Allentown Waste To Energy Experimental? ". In the comment section Van Rainey (who council cut out of the deal) said, "Over a twenty year period we would save the City of Allentown nearly $94,000,000 vs DTE which would save at most a little over $4,000,000 in the same period.

I simply don’t understand why the administration has chosen to take such an inferior deal. When you also take into account that they offer an unproven technology while we have proven on a commercial scale to have cleaner and more financially viable technology. We don’t need $6,000,000 in grants to make our program work. We can generate as many jobs but still save the City substantial sums."

Perhaps this will explain why. In my post on Monday, May 14, 2012 "Allentown Waste To Energy" I linked to Jarrett Renshaw's article which said, "A pivotal figure behind plans to bring a waste-to-energy plant to Allentown is not a scientist or engineer, nor is he an expert in trash disposal... Marcel Groen... is the attorney and a member of the executive board for Delta Thermo Energy... Groen has contributed at least $2,000 to Pawlowski’s campaigns since 2006, records show."

This information came to light after I already posted in between those dates with issues I had on Thursday, March 8, 2012. I urge you to take a look at those as well. Some of them are, who really bears the brunt of fines if the EPA steps in? Where did all these union supporters come from on the night of council's approval (hint: Philadelphia)? What about those questionable phone calls that were made to council members?


SummarizingAs far as we know grants of $2 million is coming from the Commonwealth Finance Agency and another $1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy. Locally we fee out around $6 million a year for 35 years. That comes in around $213 million. So here are the remaining questions.

Will this project even work?
Will we save $213 million over the next 35 years?
Why wasn't a competitor allowed to speak publicly at council's meeting?
Were there viable alternatives, in our haste, that weren't discussed?
It's been 8 months. Has DTE acquired financing and required permits?
Why didn't we go with already proven successful technology companies?
Here
Here
Or Here
TO NAME A FEW!See also this article from June of this year which says, "Sweden's successful waste-to-energy program converts household waste into energy for heating and electricity. But they've run into an unusual problem: they simply aren't generating enough trash to power the incinerators, so they've begun importing waste from European neighbors.... Sweden has recently begun to import about eight hundred thousand tons of trash from the rest of Europe per year to use in its power plants."

OCCRA
Right Here In Syracuse, New York



MVR Waste-to-Energy plant in Hamburg, Germany
(Built in 1994)

The Confederation of Europe Waste-to-Energy Plants represent
about 380 Waste-to-Energy plants across Europe

Somebody Explain Why Allentown's
Needlessly Re-Inventing The Wheel?

Kind of stupid, don't you think?

Allentown. What a bunch of rubes!