Agenda - 10-07-2008 - 7a - Laserfiche WebLink

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operating in southern California for two years. It was built and is operated by International Environmental Solutions, ofRmmo|and, CA. 3.7 Plasma Arc The plasma arc furnace is commercial unit process made and marketed by Westinghouse. It has been successfully applied to a variety of industrial applications; however, there are no commercial -scale o |aona arc systems firing MBV in the United States the time of this report. There are pilot plants used for ash vitrification in Japan and a smaller Japanese facility firing MSVV, but attempts to apply this process in the United States have not vet been successful. However, several vendors are advancing projects as described earlier. The electric power requirements for the torch are significant, and maintenance of torches and reactor refractory materials is also a significant expense ihsrn. Few, if any of the plasma arc pilot facilities have been able to generate a fuel gas (syngas), and air emissions have been found to be no better than conventional � i - �t�nns The Atlanta firm Geop|asnna has deve|opnmentcontract and is incineration . negotiating a contract for implementation of a large plasma arc facility for »4SVV in St. Lucie County, Florida, which will also to be used for processing mined landfill waste. The City of Tallahassee, Florida approved the contract for Green Power Systems to begin development of a 1,000 TPD plasma gasification plant, which is scheduled to begin operations in2O1O. 3.8 Biological Fuel Production 3.8.1 Cellulosic Ethanol There are a number of commercial facilities in the U.S. (See Table 3-2) and worldwide producing cellulosic ethanol, a biofue| produced from |ignoceUu|ose, a structural material that comprises much of the mass ofplants. These facilities utilize a variety of biomass feedstocks. Biomass 1s any living or recently dead biological rnatahe| that can be used as fuel or for industrial production. Biomass feedstocks include crops grown specifically for use as a feedstock, such as corn or hemp, agricultural residues, and other organic residues and wastes, including the organic ' portion of MBVV. At the time of this report, no U.S, facilities are feeding MBVV but a number of vendors are planning to use MSVVaaafeedstock. Abengoa BioenergY owns and operates five cellulosic ethanol facilities throughout the United Staten and Europe with a total, production capacity of over 200 nn|||ion gallons annually. It is currently the fifth largest producer of cellulosic ethanol in the United States with a total of four plants located in Kansas, New Mexico, and Nebraska. The most recent began operations in mid 2007, bringing Abengoa Bioenergy'snarnep|aba capacity to more than 200 million gallons per year inthe U.S. In addition, Abengoa Bioenergy operates four plants inEurope. The world's first commercial scale demonstration biomass plant is being constructed by Bimanergy to exhibit its biomass-to-ethanol process technology. Located in ' Babi|afuente (Salamanca), Spain, the biomass plant will process 77 tons of agricultural resides, such, as wheat straw, each day and produce over 1.3 million gallons of fuel grade ethanol per, year. Bioothano| is most currently used in Brazil, mna longstanding policies promote and encourage the use ofbioethano| as fuel for transportation.