[USCC] Orange County Register - Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - New plan replaces sewage sludge fiasco

[Jim McNelly]

<http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1620010.php>http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1620010.php 




Orange County Register

Wednesday, March 14, 2007


New plan replaces sewage sludge fiasco


Officials embrace waste-to-energy plan for sewage 
sludge. It didn't work in Los Angeles 15 years 
ago, but this is different, they say.


By TERI SFORZA
The Orange County Register

In hindsight, it was little more than modern 
alchemy, "a technological crap game," a massive 
mistake that burned half a billion public dollars.

Convert sewage sludge into clean-burning energy.

In the 1980s and '90s, officials in Los Angeles 
spent some $500 million on two plants that were 
supposed to do exactly that. But what was elegant 
in theory turned out to be horrific in reality – 
abrasive slludge ate through valves, clogged 
pipes and erupted into flames so hot they took days to extinguish.

The city of Los Angeles' plant scrapped the 
technology at the heart of its waste-to-energy 
idea and went with something simpler. The Los 
Angeles County Sanitation District's plant never went online.

So it is with some deja vu that officials are now 
touting the idea of converting sewage sludge to 
energy. This time, a private company is taking 
the financial risk of designing and building the 
plant, not taxpayers. Times – and technology – 
have changed, officials said. They believe the 
outcome will be very different now. But still, no 
one is completely sure – not even renewwable 
energy company EnerTech Environmental, the one taking the risk.

"Can SlurryCarb successfully treat biosolids?" 
asked a report commissioned by EnerTech in 2005, 
examining the differences between the failed Los 
Angeles experiments and its patented SlurryCarb process.

"This question will not be answered definitively 
until the process is designed, constructed and operated."

The plant is now under construction in Rialto. It 
was originally scheduled to open this year, but 
is now expected to come online in 2008.

"The industry never forgets a failure," said 
Layne Baroldi of the Orange County Sanitation District.

The Orange County Sanitation District, the 
Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, and 
the cities of Riverside, San Bernardino and 
Rialto, have all signed contracts to send a 
collective 675 tons of sewage sludge a day to 
EnerTech's plant. Missing from this list is the 
city of Los Angeles, which was courted by EnerTech but didn't sign up.

EnerTech's "SlurryCarb" process will subject 
sludge to extreme heat and pressure. Cellular 
structures rupture, carbon dioxide gas splits 
off, water is easily removed, and what's left is 
essentially concentrated carbon. That stuff is 
dried and becomes what EnerTech calls "E-fuel," 
which will be sold to power cement kilns in place of coal.

SlurryCarb, EnerTech says, is different from the 
process behind the Los Angeles fiasco, which is 
called "Carver-Greenfield." Carver-Greenfield 
used oil to suspend solids as water is 
evaporated, which led to grave gumming up down 
the line; SlurryCarb does not. Carver-Greenfield 
used forced evaporation to remove water, which 
created yet other problems; SlurryCarb does not.

"Most of (Los Angeles') problems do not apply to 
the SlurryCarb process because the two processes 
are designed to do completely different things," 
says a 2005 report paid for by EnerTech, trying to assuage doubts.

Larry Stauch of Fullerton was surprised to hear 
that a project like this was going forward again. 
He worked for the Los Angeles County Sanitation 
Districts during the Carver-Greenfield troubles.

"The energy derived from human waste is small 
compared with the unbelievable amount of toxic 
emissions derived from the conversion process," 
Stauch said in an e-mail. "This type of facility 
trades one form of pollution with another. The 
industrial waste present in our wastewater 
contains heavy metals such as cyanide, chromium, 
zinc, and they do not break down in any heat. They just become airborne."

A permit has been issued for the Rialto plant by 
the South Coast Air Quality Management District, 
air emission controls have been built into the 
system, and heavy metals will not be released, 
said Baroldi of the Orange County Sanitation District.

"There are still unknowns about the SlurryCarb 
process," EnerTech's report says. "However 
 the 
Rialto project has a high likelihood of success."

The Orange County Sanitation District agrees.

"Although the SlurryCarb process is a new 
technology, much of the equipment used in the 
process is common in the biosolids industry," says a district report.

Even if the entire project went belly-up, venture 
capitalists and EnerTech would be left holding 
the bag, not taxpayers. "The only thing we would be out is time," Baroldi said.

The problem of what to do with sewage sludge is 
getting more problematic – and expensive. It used 
to be applied to the ground as fertilizer – a 
cheap option at $42 a ton – but that is being 
outlawed as farm couunties grow concerned about 
possible health effects. Turning the gunk into 
fuel with EnerTech will cost the Orange County 
Sanitation District $72.40 a ton.

"It's cutting-edge, but we have to be innovative," Baroldi said.