(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Dawson Thompson

Green City

Waste to Energy facility proposed to City of Prince Albert

Aug 24, 2021 | 1:00 PM

An option to help Prince Albert become more environmentally friendly was recently pitched to city council.

Canadian waste repurposing company, VDQ-NRG, which has an office in Saskatoon, made a presentation about a ‘Waste to Energy Facility’ which converts garbage into clean energy.

The company said it would cover all $60,000,000 of the capital funding required for the project which would be fully operational by 2023.The facility would also add 25 full time jobs to Prince Albert.

In his presentation, vice-president of sales, James Kernaghan said 95 per cent of waste will be diverted away from the city’s landfill and will save the city from having to expand it or build a new one.

“We take one tonne of garbage, we convert it into one megawatt of electricity or into 53 gallons of clean diesel. We also generate carbon black,” Kernaghan said. “We will divert approximately ninety per cent of what goes into the landfill and convert it into for revenue streams.

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“We have the carbon black which we can sell at a thousand dollars per tonne, we have the fuel which we can sell at a premium, and we can also reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions dramatically.”

Carbon black is highly tradable Kernaghan explained, and can be found in everything from ink to tires to clothing.

He said they could essentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the same amount that would be reduced if you took every car or truck off the road every year.

“It is a big step forward in making the city extremely green”

The ten per cent of garbage they cannot convert is fairly safe to the environment.

“Things like concrete, asphalt, ceramic, glass, and we can’t do anything with asbestos,” Kernaghan explained. “High risk items such as biologic waste from hospitals we can process completely clean. Needles recovered in the needle recovery process, once they go through our system all the pathogens are completely destroyed and the stainless steel is recovered and sold as scrap metal.”

The shared revenue for the city is projected to be between $950,000 and $3 million.

They said the life cycle for the waste repurposing facility would be endless.

“We constantly upgrade, constantly repair and replace, and hopefully will improve our technology every year,” Kernaghan explained.

Council members had several questions about the bold claims, including whether Prince Albert produced enough garbage to make the project viable and whether any other communities have signed on to have the same facility. The city manger’s office will review the VDQ-NRG proposal with administration to come up with a more conclusive assessment of how the pitch could potentially benefit the city.

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Dawson.thompson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @dawsonthompson8