The Lighthouse Keeper
UP IN GAS
BY DANIEL W. DRAKE ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
Not that many years ago, the prescribed method of dealing with solid waste at the dump involved the use of a pitchfork, a can of something combustible, and a box of matches. The result was some reduction in the volume of the material brought for disposal and an almost perpetual column of black smoke that, at best, offended the olfactory sense of anyone unlucky enough to be downwind and, at worse, probably made a significant contribution to the island's rate of lung disease.

What did not burn was buried. In the last few years, Waste Options has herded all that residual material into "Mount Madaket" in anticipation of "mining" it to separate unredeemable solids from other materials. But that is another story.

Having progressed to the stage of composting organic and certain other solid waste and to the transporting offisland of recyclables and of construction and demolition trash (now costing more than $1 million annually for the shipment of c&d waste alone), clearly it behooves the town to look to alternative means of waste disposal. The current solution du jour is gasification, a topic on the agenda for tonight's Board of Selectmen's meeting.

Gasification is the name of a complex technical process, which utilizes very high heat and a series of chemical reactions to turn solid material into gases, which, in turn, are utilized as fuel for generating electricity. According to the proponents of the concept as the next tool of choice to deal with municipal waste (of the solid, not the monetary kind,) gasification is more efficient, less costly to operate and environmentally friendlier than any other currently used means of waste disposal.

For the process's detractors, the principal issue is environmental: the real impact of the process is not known. At least one study, by Carnegie Mellon University researchers questioning any positive environmental legacy of gasification, was enough to raise the ire of the Gasification Technology Council, an industry trade association. (If anyone is interested, the GTC is having its annual convention in San Francisco October 14-17.)

Given the fact that there is an active industry trade association (The members include such illustrious names as General Electric, British Petroleum and Duke Energy.) one should not be surprised that, as a concept and as a technology, gasification has been around for a long time. (The gas produced by the old Nantucket Gas and Electric Company was created using a crude form of gasification.) The technology has evolved and will continue to develop. The principal use to date appears to have been in the power generation arena where gasification has been promoted and used as a means of cleaning up the emissions from coal - fired electric power generators and making them more efficient.

Such facilities do not come cheaply or without controversy. A power plant using gasification technology proposed for the Back River in Wiscasset, Maine, bears a price tag of $1.5 billion and would be the most expensive construction project ever undertaken in that state. It is being met with opposition from a spectrum of interests ranging from the Conservation Law Foundation, with concerns about greenhouse gas-related emissions to the local lobstermen who are worried about the impact of barges bringing in 5,000 tons of coal each day. Others are concerned about the effect of the plant's using 8.5 million gallons of water every day.

While gasification has been talked about for a long time, no municipality in the United States appears to have adopted the idea and successfully run with it. New York City announced in 2003, when a landfill was closed and its cost of waste disposal was rapidly rising, that it was looking at options like gasification. It appears that one local government in Japan has started down the road and there may be others overseas, but a Google search reveals virtually nothing about any gasification project other than those for coal. An article in this newspaper eleven months ago reported a conceptual proposal by Waste Options, the contract operator of the landfill, for the town to spend "$9-12 million" for a gasification plant to take care of all of the town's solid waste disposal needs. The vendor cited in that article had signed a contract with Morris Ill., a town similar in size to Nantucket, to build and operate a solid waste gasification plant. According to news reports, the contract with that vendor was terminated by the town of Morris in early 2007 for non-performance.

The concept of gasification of solid waste makes sense or, at least, sounds good to the scientifically challenged. The environmental benefits, as described, if true, are very substantial. Thus, it is important that we listen to the discussions the town leaders are about to have with an open mind. We must resist any knee-jerk reaction, whether we are viscerally for or against the concept of gasification.

Certainly, we need to find a new solution to the island's waste disposal needs. Costs and diminishing landfill space mandate that. At the moment, gasification seems to be the most promising alternative. However, this does not mean Nantucket needs to be the guinea pig nor beta tester of a new technology. We should have learned a lesson from the composting process which took much longer to implement than anyone could have imagined.

Before beginning down the path of gasification, we must be confident of the technology, we must have faith in the vendor and operator and we must be comfortable with the cost/benefits - which will probably not fit any known paradigm. We need to know the hurdles - for example, effecting a change to the current state prohibition against burning trash. Above all, we need to understand the process - what gasification can and cannot do - both in terms of waste disposal and electricity generation.

As the discussion proceeds, let us listen and learn. Let us insist on rational rather than emotional discourse. And, in the end, whatever decision we make, let us go into it with as much confidence as possible that the decision is one that we will not endlessly second-guess.

In the meantime, we can have a contest. What should we call the place out there on the Madaket Road after its transformation? "Dump" is politically incorrect. "Landfill" will be passé. Anew name will be needed.

No doubt, to be continued. I

The "Lighthouse Keeper" reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the editorial position of The Nantucket Independent. Please send any ideas or comments to drake@nantucketindependent.com.