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Minutes - Regular Meeting Solid Waste Advisory Board March 5 , 2009 Approved April 2, 2009 furnace * that is im ortant in terms of being able to reduce the dioxin formation and a p lot of pollutants . It is the first stage of being able to make sure we are burning as p ty efficientlyas we possibly can . The material travels through the rest of �out to a The steam that is generated comes out of the top of the unit which goes gas, o which has the turbine generator that generates electricity . We take all the flue put throw h a majority of the pollutants that are still are in the flue gas [and they] p g d scrubber where we spray a hydrated lime slurry solution that is scrubbing spray dry out acidgasses .asses . From there we ' ve dropped out the vast majority of the acid gas takes out the p it is ut through a fabric filter, a very expensive vacuum cleaner . This e all that vast majority of the particulates . We have to be 99 . 996 /o effic f lter before we exhaust particulate and make sure we capture it at the bottom of the out the flue gas . With a ton of MSW we are able to displace one barrel of oil or a third of a ton of coal . It is different because it i he MSW that we are most concerned s the heating value of t about. The more plastics in the waste stream the higher the heating value is going to irt that don' t have a high BTU content then the be . If there are more materials like d heating content is lower . It wa s mentioned earlier that North Carolina does not consider WtE to be renewabl energy at this point. However there are 24 states in the U . S . as well as the Department gY of Energy that clearly recognize WtE as being a renewable source of energy .ant to do is big believers . I don' t want to come here and sell a WtE plant, what rehouse as sell an entire concept of a waste management plan . Regarding greenhouse when you light a emissions, there is some carbon dioxide emitted . That happens Y g ch . Lookmi at this on an integrated basis, on what we consider to be a life cycle , mat g there are three significant areas where we are able to [achieve] a positive net impact a The l . on the overall greenhouse gas emissions . First is there isn t the use of oil or non- next thing is avoiding the methane . The last thing is recovering all ferrous the facility . ferrous . These are all the metals that would come out at the back end ll es a Looking at all three of those combined we are saying one ton of MSW actually gives negative one ton on greenhouse gas emissions . Though g how h thin s have stopped in the U . S . in terms of building additional WtE facilitiesen the have continued in Europe and Asia . Over the past 10 or 15 years there haste Y incredible progress made in Europe . There has not been a WtE sited or bu first one U . S . in 10 or 15 years . Wheelabrator was awarded one recently . It will be the built in the U . S . in the last ten years (in Maryland) . Wheelabrator ' s first plant was back in 1975 in Saugus [MA] . It was the�fir tability . commercial plant operable in the U . S . It is still operating today at 92 . 5 /o avail e are p three boilers and w Availability means that this particular plant is three uni time . That fives a good able to continue to have them run in excess of 93 /o of theg 14