By ALEXI HOWK
FORT PIERCE — Redevelopment efforts got a $20 million boost Wednesday — by land and sea.
City commissioners approved a $10 million budget for the Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency, including $250,000 toward a crime surveillance pilot program and $306,797 for the Sunrise Theatre operations.
The commission also approved $9.9 million in contracts to acquire property near the Port of Fort Pierce as part of a future redevelopment plan.
The redevelopment agency will start funding salaries for several employees in the community services and planning departments who will work with the agency on economic development projects, such as the Moore's Creek Linear Park plan and redevelopment of Avenue B.
Responding to Mayor Bob Benton's question about a $335,000 budget request for the anti-crime Weed & Seed program, Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency Director John Ward said $250,000 of the money would go to the police department for a pilot program to install surveillance cameras in the city's most crime-ridden areas.
"That was the only way we could fund it," Ward said.
Meanwhile, city officials have remained tight-lipped about their plans to redevelop port property.
The commission approved a $5.7 million contract to buy 1.67 acres on Fisherman's Wharf, including an acre of submerged land with 42 boat slips. The commission also approved a $4.2 million contract to purchase 5.2 acres on Second Street, the former site of Southern Film Extruders.
The purchase would give the city control over development on the site.
Benton said the city is currently in negotiations with two developers interested in developing a five-star hotel and a convention center on port property.
"This isn't something that is going to happen overnight, but it could be the largest waterfront redevelopment plan in Treasure Coast history," Benton said after the meeting. "I wish I could tell you more."
Eventually, the city wants to acquire more than 90 acres of port property, including 67 acres owned by prominent business man Lloyd Bell's property that have been the subject of years of negotiations between Bell and the city.
On Monday, Bell and his attorney met with county and city officials to discuss future plans for the land, but results were inconclusive.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Vaporizer pitched to lay waste to garbage
By Brian Skoloff
Associated Press
FORT PIERCE, Fla. – A Florida county has grand plans to ditch its dump, generate electricity and help build roads – all by vaporizing garbage at temperatures hotter than the sun.
The $425 million plant expected to be built in St. Lucie County will use lightning-like plasma arcs to turn trash into gas and rock-like material. It will be the first such plant in the nation operating on such a massive scale and the largest in the world.
Supporters say the process is cleaner than traditional trash incineration, although skeptics question whether the technology can meet the lofty expectations.
The 100,000-square-foot plant, slated to be operational in two years, is expected to vaporize 3,000 tons of garbage a day. County officials estimate their entire landfill – 4.3 million tons of trash collected since 1978 – will be gone in 18 years.
No byproduct will go unused, according to Geoplasma, the Atlanta-based company building and paying for the plant.
Synthetic, combustible gas produced in the process will be used to run turbines to create electricity – about 120 megawatts a day – that will be sold back to the grid. The facility will operate on about a third of the power it generates, free from outside electricity.
About 80,000 pounds of steam per day will be sold to a neighboring Tropicana Products Inc. plant to power the juice producer’s turbines.
Sludge from the county’s wastewater treatment plant will be vaporized, and a material created from melted organic matter – up to 600 tons a day – will be hardened into slag and sold for use in road and construction projects.
“This is sustainability in its truest and finest form,” said Hilburn Hillestad, president of Geoplasma, a subsidiary of Jacoby Development Inc.
For years, some waste-management plants have been converting methane – created by rotting trash in landfills – to power. Others also burn trash to produce electricity.
The plasma-arc gasification plant in St. Lucie County, on central Florida’s Atlantic Coast, aims to eliminate the need for a landfill. Only two similar plants are operating in the world – both in Japan – but are gasifying garbage on a much smaller scale.
Up to eight plasma arc-equipped cupolas will vaporize trash year-round, nonstop. Garbage will be brought in on conveyor belts and dumped into the cylindrical cupolas where it falls into a zone of heat more than 10,000 degrees.
“We didn’t want to do it like everybody else,” said Leo Cordeiro, the county’s solid waste director. “We knew there were better ways.”
No emissions are released during the closed-loop gasification, Geoplasma says. The only emissions will come from the synthetic gas-powered turbines that create electricity. Even that will be cleaner than burning coal or natural gas, experts say.
Few other toxins will be generated, Geoplasma says.
But a critic disagrees.
“We’ve found projects similar to this being misrepresented all over the country,” said Monica Wilson of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.
Wilson said there aren’t enough studies to prove the company’s claims that emissions will likely be less than from a standard natural-gas power plant.
She also said other companies have tried to produce such results and failed. She cited two similar plants run by different companies in Australia and Germany that closed after failing to meet emission standards.
“I think this is the time for the residents of this county to start asking some tough questions,” Wilson said.
Bruce Parker, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based National Solid Wastes Management Association, scoffs at the notion that plasma technology will eliminate the need for landfills.
“We do know that plasma arc is a legitimate technology, but let’s see first how this thing works for St. Lucie County,” Parker said. “It’s too soon for people to make wild claims that we won’t need landfills.”
Geoplasma expects to recoup its $425 million investment, financed by bonds, within 20 years through the sale of electricity and slag.
“That’s the silver lining,” said the company’s Hillestad, adding that St. Lucie County won’t pay a dime. The company has assumed full responsibility for interest on the bonds.
“It addresses two of the world’s largest problems – how to deal with solid waste and the energy needs of our communities,” County Commissioner Cris Craft said. “This is the end of the rainbow. It will change the world.”
Associated Press
FORT PIERCE, Fla. – A Florida county has grand plans to ditch its dump, generate electricity and help build roads – all by vaporizing garbage at temperatures hotter than the sun.
The $425 million plant expected to be built in St. Lucie County will use lightning-like plasma arcs to turn trash into gas and rock-like material. It will be the first such plant in the nation operating on such a massive scale and the largest in the world.
Supporters say the process is cleaner than traditional trash incineration, although skeptics question whether the technology can meet the lofty expectations.
The 100,000-square-foot plant, slated to be operational in two years, is expected to vaporize 3,000 tons of garbage a day. County officials estimate their entire landfill – 4.3 million tons of trash collected since 1978 – will be gone in 18 years.
No byproduct will go unused, according to Geoplasma, the Atlanta-based company building and paying for the plant.
Synthetic, combustible gas produced in the process will be used to run turbines to create electricity – about 120 megawatts a day – that will be sold back to the grid. The facility will operate on about a third of the power it generates, free from outside electricity.
About 80,000 pounds of steam per day will be sold to a neighboring Tropicana Products Inc. plant to power the juice producer’s turbines.
Sludge from the county’s wastewater treatment plant will be vaporized, and a material created from melted organic matter – up to 600 tons a day – will be hardened into slag and sold for use in road and construction projects.
“This is sustainability in its truest and finest form,” said Hilburn Hillestad, president of Geoplasma, a subsidiary of Jacoby Development Inc.
For years, some waste-management plants have been converting methane – created by rotting trash in landfills – to power. Others also burn trash to produce electricity.
The plasma-arc gasification plant in St. Lucie County, on central Florida’s Atlantic Coast, aims to eliminate the need for a landfill. Only two similar plants are operating in the world – both in Japan – but are gasifying garbage on a much smaller scale.
Up to eight plasma arc-equipped cupolas will vaporize trash year-round, nonstop. Garbage will be brought in on conveyor belts and dumped into the cylindrical cupolas where it falls into a zone of heat more than 10,000 degrees.
“We didn’t want to do it like everybody else,” said Leo Cordeiro, the county’s solid waste director. “We knew there were better ways.”
No emissions are released during the closed-loop gasification, Geoplasma says. The only emissions will come from the synthetic gas-powered turbines that create electricity. Even that will be cleaner than burning coal or natural gas, experts say.
Few other toxins will be generated, Geoplasma says.
But a critic disagrees.
“We’ve found projects similar to this being misrepresented all over the country,” said Monica Wilson of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.
Wilson said there aren’t enough studies to prove the company’s claims that emissions will likely be less than from a standard natural-gas power plant.
She also said other companies have tried to produce such results and failed. She cited two similar plants run by different companies in Australia and Germany that closed after failing to meet emission standards.
“I think this is the time for the residents of this county to start asking some tough questions,” Wilson said.
Bruce Parker, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based National Solid Wastes Management Association, scoffs at the notion that plasma technology will eliminate the need for landfills.
“We do know that plasma arc is a legitimate technology, but let’s see first how this thing works for St. Lucie County,” Parker said. “It’s too soon for people to make wild claims that we won’t need landfills.”
Geoplasma expects to recoup its $425 million investment, financed by bonds, within 20 years through the sale of electricity and slag.
“That’s the silver lining,” said the company’s Hillestad, adding that St. Lucie County won’t pay a dime. The company has assumed full responsibility for interest on the bonds.
“It addresses two of the world’s largest problems – how to deal with solid waste and the energy needs of our communities,” County Commissioner Cris Craft said. “This is the end of the rainbow. It will change the world.”
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