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Two successful years in the High Arctic

Thursday, September 11th, 2014

The high arctic community of Old Crow is located in the stunning Yukon wilderness of Canada’s North. Home to the Vuntut Gwitchin people the community demonstrates ongoing stewardship of their land by embracing the famous Porcupine Caribou migration and also deploying a 1.5 tonne per batch WTEC sBOS waste gasifier. The plant was commissioned in 2012 and has been cleanly destroying waste since with up to three batches per day. This flexibility attracted the World Bank for onsite deployments around the world.

“The World Bank team recently visited Old Crow and reminded us that two very successful years of operation have passed, so we are proud to do our part for Old Crow” commented WTEC COO, Alistair Haughton adding “the simple, proven and fully compliant sBOS system ticks all the boxes for deployment in this highly sensitive environment”.

Old Crow

WTEC’s latest iteration on the sBOS platform is a skid-mounted version for ship, rail or truck transport and ease of installation anywhere – ideal for industry, health care and other campus-style locations, especially with optional energy recovery. Ask us for more details

2014 marks 14 year Anniversary of Egegik sBOS

Tuesday, September 9th, 2014

Proven durability of WTEC’s clean waste destruction systems

This year marks the 14th consecutive successful year of operations of the sBOS system at Egegik Alaska. “Its testament to the depth of quality of the team and our technology platform that 14 years of operations have passed with ease at Egegik”, commented WTEC COO Alistair Haughton, “Given the sensitive environment, extreme climatic conditions and variety of waste feedstock the team deserve credit for the robust performance”. During its history the system grew from 3.5 tonnes per day to the current 7 to meet local demand, benefitting from the modular and scalable sBOS platform.

WTEC team including Automation and Systems Specialist Rocky Pouliot have kept the plant up to date with scheduled preventative maintenance and upgrades as we continue to iterate the technology. As with all the BOS plants worldwide we keep ahead of regulations, especially emissions management and Egegik sBOS is no exception shown here in full operational mode. Note the lack of smoke or harmful emissions. Here’s to the next 14 years in a planned 30 year deployment.

Egegik

WTEC in The National

Friday, June 28th, 2013

Please click the link below to view Renee Morad’s very informative review of the waste to energy sector :

National Article – Rubbish becomes a burning issue in global push for green energy – The National

New York Times Article

Friday, May 24th, 2013

New York Times

May 21, 2013
Trash Burning, With a Clean-Energy Twist
By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE
The Hague — After this newspaper has been read, it may be used to line a birdcage, recycled, burned, stuffed into a landfill or converted into something even more powerful than the press: electricity.

“There is a cleaner way of dealing with things that people cast away,” said Andy Harris, vice president of Waste to Energy Canada, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. “We shouldn’t see it as waste, we should see it as a source of energy.”

Nowhere more so than in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Still challenged by a legacy of environmental neglect inherited from the former Soviet Union, those that have joined the European Union now must conform to strict waste directives issued by the European Commission. Poland, like others in the region, has had to amend national laws to keep within environmentally friendly European guidelines. Fortunately, just when governments and the local authorities in Eastern Europe are looking for more environmentally friendly ways to handle their waste, new technology that produces energy while eliminating waste is increasingly available as a viable alternative to old-style dumping or burning.

The combination of changing laws, financial incentives and new technologies like “waste gasification” promises to open valuable business opportunities in the region’s waste processing markets. Poland, looking to modernize its waste infrastructure, is an example: Together with a local partner, Rank Progress, W.T.E.C. is scheduled to start construction of the first of three Polish energy-generating incineration plants this year. When the first plant is operational in Dlugoszyn, near Krakow in southern Poland, at the end of next year, it will be able to burn 120 tons of waste a day while delivering 7 megawatts of electricity to the grid. The plant’s planned processing capacity will eventually rise to 180 tons a day.

According to Alistair Haughton, W.T.E.C.’s chief operating officer, the company is a pioneer in Poland, where most waste is still dumped into landfills. “We are the first company with gasification technology,” in the Polish market, he said.

Differing from classical incinerators, waste-to-energy plants are sold as an efficient and environmentally sustainable way to eliminate waste by burning. “We gently cook the waste and then we burn the gas from that,” said Mr. Harris, the company’s vice president. Using a method called batch oxidation, the plant heats waste in large chambers before burning the gas emitted. The process efficiently extracts the energy contained in garbage while reducing pollution to a minimum, according to Mr. Haughton. “Rather than adding a catalytic converter to a car, we have a cleaner-burning engine,” said Mr. Harris, drawing an analogy with advances in auto emissions technology . Heat resulting from burning the gas can either be used directly — W.T.E.C. has built a plant in Iceland that feeds directly into a municipal heating plant, heating local housing for free — or it can be converted by transformers to generate power that can be fed into the grid.

“The emissions coming from those plants fulfill all legal regulations, that means that they are very effective and environmentally friendly,” said Joanna Wolkowska, the managing director of Rank Recycling Energy.

Although waste management directives have been in place at the European level since 2008, Poland, along with some other E.U. countries, has taken its time to write the laws into national legislation. Still, by July this year, Polish municipalities will no longer own their waste management facilities, a practice that encouraged the cheapest form of waste disposal: making landfills. The new laws, which include strict emission guidelines, are designed to make waste processing lucrative while introducing incentives for the installation of environmentally friendly processes.

The Dlugoszyn plant will cost an estimated 42 million Canadian dollars, or $41 million, to construct. W.T.E.C. and Rank Progress have signed a contract to run the plant for the first 10 years of operation, recouping their costs by charging surrounding communities a fee to eliminate their waste. In 2011, every person in Poland generated 315 kilograms, or 694 pounds, of waste, according to Eurostat, the European statistics bureau. Compared to richer countries like Denmark, Luxemburg and Switzerland — where residents produced more than double that amount — the country ranks favorably in the European bloc. However, when it comes to processing waste, Poland has lagged. In 2011 a full 71 percent went to landfills, with only 11 percent recycled, another 17 percent composted and only 1 percent incinerated. By way of comparison, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden put only 1 percent into landfills, recycling 32 percent to 45 percent of their waste.

W.T.E.C., founded in 2009, designs, constructs and operates waste gasification plants around the world. They have 19 such projects in places like the Cayman Islands, Dumfries, Scotland, and Husavik, Iceland. The company also constructs mobile plants that are built in modules fitting into standard shipping containers and can be flown, trucked or shipped to remote locations around the world. The company is currently running those units in northern Canada. Besides the Dlugoszyn facility, the firm is in the process of obtaining building and operating permits for another plant in Ruda Slaska, near Katowice. A third plant, near Warsaw, is under discussion, as is a plant in Croatia. “Everything is currently changing, the awareness for waste of the Polish society is growing day by day,” said Ms. Wolkowska.

W.T.E.C. plants fit well into the patchwork of the Polish market because of their relatively modest size. The technology “has become very popular with the Polish mayors, it’s seen as a political win,” Mr. Haughton said. “We are able to put in small facilities at low capital cost and with a small footprint.” The W.T.E.C. system can process most types of waste, a clear advantage for Tadeusz Pietrucki, who leads an association of 15 local communities that has been managing Dlugoszyn waste for the past 15 years. The new plant will be able to handle biological waste to E.U. standards, Mr. Pietrucki said, something that facilities now used by his association cannot do.

Still, while the European Commission would like to eradicate the use of landfills by 2020, its directives favor recycling and the reduction of waste over incineration. According to the Commission’s “waste hierarchy” ranking of disposal practices, incineration is only slightly preferable to the detested landfills.
Although incineration is not yet actively opposed, it is likely to become a target of the European Commission soon, according to Joe Hennon, a spokesman for the commission. “That will be the next one to come under serious scrutiny,” Mr. Hennon said, noting that the commission makes no distinction between incinerators and waste-to-energy plants. Mr. Hennon said that the Commission would prefer countries to work toward best practices of recycling and reducing waste rather than to invest in what he says are intermediary technologies. “Member states should not invest heavily in incineration, because it locks you in,” he said.

In Dlugoszyn, however, where the old way of getting rid of waste is being outlawed, Mr. Pietrucki sees a need for the Canadian technology. “We visited the plant in Iceland and thought it would be good enough for Poland,” he said.

ends

Nominate WTEC for Cleantech 100

Monday, April 15th, 2013

Hello

The WTEC team have achieved some great momentum in Canada and in our core markets of the UK and Poland along with excellent opportunities in the US. As part of our outreach into the markets we seek a few moments of your time to add your vote to nominations for this year’s  Global Cleantech 100, a list of the top 100 private companies in clean technology.
(  maybe vote for others, but firstly WTEC please !)

Please click on the following link to nominate WTEC: http://info.cleantech.com/GlobalCleantech1002013.html

Part of the rationale for why WTEC should be nominated:  Among their projects around the globe WTEC has deployed a proprietary mBOS gasifier in Old Crow to provide a waste destruction solution for this arctic community in Canada’s Yukon. In doing so WTEC is reducing leachate from the garbage dump in to the Porcupine River and removing waste from the migration route of the 230,000 strong Porcupine Caribou herd as they head to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The 2013 list will be announced at the Global Cleantech 100 Summit and Gala in Washington, DC, October 9-10.

Thank you for your time and for nominating WTEC and do please share this with family and friends to add their vote to the count – the more the merrier!   We’d appreciate your nominations as soon as feasible please – ideally before the May 31st deadline.


WTEC and Rank Progress Joint Venture Annoucement

Thursday, February 7th, 2013

MEDIA RELEASE

Joint Venture

February 6, 2013 (Vancouver, British Columbia) – Rank Progress SA (“Rank Progress”) and Waste to Energy Canada Inc. (“WtEC”) are pleased to announce the formation of a Joint Venture, Rank Recycling Energy Sp. Z.o.o (“RRE”) for the sales, marketing and project development of waste processing facilities in Poland and Croatia using WtEC’s proprietary technology.

The JV Agreement was signed January 31, 2013 in the Canadian Embassy in Warsaw by Jan Mroczka, President of Rank Progress and Rod Taylor, CEO of WtEC in the presence of Alexandra Bugailiskis, the Canadian Ambassador Designate to the Republic of Poland.

Following Rank Progress’ success over the last fifteen years in developing over 300,000 square metres (3,228,000 sq ft) of retail and commercial developments in regional towns and cities throughout Poland, the Joint Venture will seek to emulate this success by working in partnership with municipalities to provide waste processing facilities through a Design, Build, Own and Operate business model.

The signing of this Agreement is the culmination of over one year’s joint project development work preparing the launch of the JV.

Present in Warsaw from WtEC was Rod Taylor, CEO, Alistair Haughton, COO, David Hanegraaf, CFO, and Stephen Cochrane, VP Projects and from the Government of Canada was Rouslan Kats, Trade Commissioner to Poland, Klaus Hoben, Director and Anna Wozniak of Export Development Canada.

Speaking at the event Rod Taylor, WtEC CEO said: “WtEC is extremely pleased to announce this Joint Venture with Rank Progress at a time when the Polish market is changing and developing quickly.  Through Rank Progress’ project development experience all over Poland we hope to quickly develop partnerships with several local municipalities”.

Rank Progress and WtEC would like to thank Miller Canfield’s Warsaw office and Salan’s Warsaw office for their respective advice and cooperation on the JV Agreement.

Waste Management in Poland

Waste management in Poland follows a National Waste Management Plan that follows the EU Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC) which in summary, requires that the waste hierarchy of reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and finally store, is adopted by local governments.

The country of Poland has traditionally relied on landfill as a means of dealing with its waste.  However, the changes in legislation require that waste is now processed which means the building of new facilities and an investment in processing equipment.

Rank Recycling Energy will seek to work with municipalities over an extended period of time to help them through this transition with the provision of project development, technology and operating experience.

About Rank Progress SA:
Headquartered in Legnica, Poland, the company is distinguished in the market by its unique strategy of preparing and carrying out projects, consisting of the acquisition of attractively located land and its development by building commercial facilities intended for rent or sale.  Rank Progress focuses mainly on medium-sized cities as they are typically less saturated with commercial facilities than large urban centres.

About Waste to Energy Canada:
Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, WtEC provides integrated ‘clean and smart’ waste to energy and water infrastructure that creates sustainable community development around the world.  WtEC’s waste to energy technologies cleanly destroy waste and produce clean, renewable energy.  The systems are modular, scalable and can cleanly convert a variety of unprocessed waste types from municipal and industrial to medical and hazardous waste to biomass.   The self-sustaining thermal reaction requires very little ignition fuel, reduces waste volume by 95% and creates an energy rich gas that can be utilized for industrial purposes, heating and refrigeration, desalination and electricity generation.

About Rank Recycling Energy Sp. Z.o.o.:
Based in Warsaw and Legnica, Poland, RRE will provide new waste processing facilities and technology helping to divert Poland’s waste away from landfills.

For further information please contact:
Alistair Haughton, COO, WtEC
250-702-3891

Rank Progress SA
www.rankprogress.pl

Waste to Energy Canada
www.wtecanada.com

Rank Recycling Energy Sp. Z.o.o
www.rankenergy.pl

MGS Deployed

Monday, July 16th, 2012

The garbage dump was an issue for the community of Old Crow in the north west of the Yukon, Canada.

Before WTEC won the bid to deploy a Mobile Gasifier System in Old Crow there were limited resources to deal with garbage. Now  the new MGS cleanly destroys waste daily and allows for some ‘mining’ of the existing landfill to reduce the impact on the highly sensitive site.  Along with preventing further damage the MGS will also ensure emissions from rotting garbage are eliminated and the need to burn waste is avoided. WTEC’s Alistair is seen on top of that dump in the image to the right.

The MGS transportability and versatility was demonstrated when it was flown in via Hercules aircraft and deployed at the landfill site. With plenty of arctic sunlight during the long summer days the WTEC crew completed full onsite testing with varied loads of waste – all with 100% success, as anticipated in pre-delivery testing.

The varied adaptations of the MGS for the extreme conditions in the arctic ensure it can operate year round – from -40 to +30 C. These include a raised unit to avoid permafrost damage, insulation, pre-heaters, a remote uplink for off-site systems check and warm-up, lighting, self contained heated wash down and waste waster collection and adjustable venting along with a host of other features for ease of use. WTEC is now training the team there to run the MGS and will continue to provide ongoing support.

New Mobile Gasifier technology

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

As with any new product launch there is an extraordinary level of commitment and hard work involved so it’s no surprise our team is full-on at the moment readying the new Mobile Gasifier System for deployment.

Designing in the controls and automation is lead by Rocky – our ace in that department and his custom designed control panel (shown here being built) is one example of the intelligent approach to ensuring the MGS functions in extreme weather: remote control and monitoring, pre-heaters, coolers, back-up systems and data gathering are all inclusive.

MGS Control Panel - under construction

Waste Management World article – Kelly Lake facility work starts

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Gasification to Generate Power from Various Wastes in BC

WTEC Gasification to Generate Power from Various Wastes in BC06 February 2012

Vancouver based Waste to Energy Canada (WTEC), has been chosen to supply a biomass waste to energy system to the Kelly Lake Metis Settlement Society (KLMSS) community in British Columbia, Canada.

According to the company, the KLMSS President, Lyle Letendre has been working for many years towards creating sustainable jobs in clean technology for members of the society.

WTEC said that following a detailed, three year feasibility study and due diligence the first key steps of the waste to energy project are underway. Construction is expected to commence late in 2012.

A Waste Stream Characterization Study, funded by BC’s Forestry Product Innovations is about to get underway. According to the company, the study will provide data on the waste used as fuel for the biomass unit.

The company said that the technology it will deploy for this project is its Continuous Gasifier System – configured in two 200 tonne per day ‘trains’ within an enclosed building on a pre-selected site near Tomslake, close to the BC Hydro grid.

It is planned that the facility will continuously convert waste into energy rich gas which will then be oxidised – releasing thermal energy. That energy is used to drive turbines to create electricity.

The primary feedstock is expected to come from forestry and industry clearances, as well as from pine beetle kill wood. Oil and gas operational wastes will act as secondary feedstock. The company said that both will also be analyzed to provide data used in designing the facility.

WTEC added that Municipal Solid Waste from Peace River District is also a potential supply of waste and the WTEC team is discussing best options with the administration team.

“Our goal is to produce approximately 15 MW of electricity to the local grid. In addition we are excited about the possibility of using the remaining balance of thermal energy from the facility to heat greenhouses for local food production and seedlings for forestry,” commented Letendre.

WTEC to help clean Arctic community

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

In the far north of Canada’s Yukon Territory the community of Old Crow is located in pristine wilderness, home to the extraordinarily huge Porcupine Caribou migration, Musk-Ox and Grizzly Bears. The Old Crow First nation community and territorial government developed a comprehensive request for proposals to clean the local garbage dump and provide a method of cleanly destroying waste. WTEC are proud to announce we beat off eleven other respondents to win the bid and the entire team is thrilled to be involved in working with such a fine project. Our Mobile Gasifier Unit will be permanently deployed to ensure the local water supply, environment, wildlife and residents can avoid pollution issues related to dumping garbage. For more information on how we can assist remote communities, institutions, military bases, ports, hospitals, and industrial waste please email us at info@wtecanada.com



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