Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
Minutes - Regular Meeting <br /> Solid Waste Advisory Board <br /> August 7, 2008 <br /> Approved September 4, 2008 <br /> Norwood asks how high is the [waste] mound at the Eubanks Landfill now, for <br /> comparison. <br /> Spire replies about 100 ft. <br /> Gershman states that these plants have availability factors of 90 % to 94 % <br /> Tipton asks about the disposal of the ash . <br /> Gershman states that the ash goes to a lined landfill . In Europe the ash is kept <br /> separate and treated like hazardous waste . In the US it is combined generally and <br /> goes into a subtitle D landfill in a separate cell . <br /> Sassaman asks what do you see in terms of differences between water quenched ash <br /> and dry ash? <br /> Gershman states that in all these plants they are wet. It' s a matter of how wet. Some <br /> are put through a bath and some through a shower, but the ash is still wet and it' s <br /> OK. <br /> Norwood asks how much water would a plant need to handle our waste . <br /> Gershman states that I don ' t remember how many gallons per ton but you need <br /> makeup water . There is a lot of recirculation . There are wet cooling towers that <br /> consume water . You can use dry cooling towers with condensers but you lose <br /> efficiency . In the plant in Babylon NY that we worked on the water came from the <br /> water underneath the landfill that was polluting the groundwater and we sucked that <br /> out. Sometimes you can use treated wastewater . <br /> Pollock states that in terms of the presentation to the Commissioners the notion of <br /> water consumption is significant, if they get past the $100 per ton cost to operate . <br /> Gershman notes that ownership is split evenly - public and private . Wheelabrator and <br /> Covanta are the major private owners of the plants . Publicly owned plants are mostly <br /> privately operated . Privately owned plants were installed because of certain tax <br /> benefits available in the late 80 ' s and early 90 ' s that are not available now . He goes on <br /> to discuss Mass Burn compared to refuse derived fitel . Most plants are mass burn by far, <br /> there used to be more modular plants before the clean air act. They became too <br /> expensive to retrofit. There are some RDF plants with fuel preparation on site . There <br /> are plants that are RDF processing only where fuel is shipped somewhere else and <br /> burned to create energy, those match up but they' re different locations . There are 89 <br /> total in the US . <br /> 2 <br />