15 January 2010

Airshed "Not an Issue" for Railway Tie Plant, Says Company

Kin Sigurdson, president of Aboriginal Cogeneration
Corp., was in Kamloops Thursday to talk about his
gasification plant.

Kamloops British Columbia - The people of Kamloops have nothing to fear from a gasification plant that will turn railway ties into energy, says the president of the company that will build it.
 
Kim Sigurdson, the head of Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp. of Winnipeg, was in Kamloops Thursday to talk about the project and to reassure the public that it won't affect airshed quality or spread toxic creosote.
 
Two one-megawatt gasifiers will be installed at a site on Mission Flats to incinerate about 450 creosote-treated waste ties per day. Until now, used ties have been burned in open fires, buried, or simply stacked up in piles.
 
Sigurdson says gasfication technology developed for his company will render the creosote in the ties inert, and compared the level of emissions to a diesel truck.
 
"It's not going to contribute to an unhealthy situation," he said. "Our emissions are below natural gas."
 
He said there will be no negative effect on the airshed. "It's not an issue."
 
Sigurdson said creosote in the ties "is brought through an enormous amount of heat and all the bad stuff is made inert. At the end of the day the ash is equivalent to potash."
 
He also said there are no concerns about contaminating land or water. He said treated condensate from the plant will enter the City's sewage system "at levels far below regulations."
 
As for accusations that the technology is unproven and that he and his company are not expert enough to run such a plant, he said experts from the Energy and Environmental Research Centre at the University of North Dakota will install the gasifiers and train staff on their operation.
 
"I'm relying on the engineers and scientists at the EERC. The technology is proven, it's been around for 100 years."
 
The Save Kamloops group formed to oppose the project has announced it will launch a formal appeal of granting of the permit by the Ministry of Environment, but Sigurdson said he'll proceed on the project until told otherwise.
 
He expects the plant to go online later this year.
 
He acknowledged, however, that the appeal could potentially cause problems. "There is a lot of lost time here."
 
While in Kamloops, Sigurdson met with Chief Shane Gottfriedson, MLA Terry Lake, media, and the Ministry of Environment.
 
Save Kamloops will stage a protest rally in front of City Hall and at MLA Terry Lake's constituency office Saturday morning.