Showing posts with label tertiary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tertiary. Show all posts

Saturday, 9 May 2015

CFAX interview with Ian Jessop about Tertiary Distributed with Gasification


Bryan's CFAX  interview with Ian Jessop starts at the 34 minute mark.

 https://soundcloud.com/ian-jessop-cfax/may-7-1pm-1

The topic was to explain how a vendor could project a total CRD sewage system for just $250 million.

See http://theriteplan.blogspot.ca/2015/05/tertiary-distributed-with-gasification_5.html for more information on the vendor's proposal.

Comments from listeners after the recording was posted .... More comments welcome below.


Clear, Factual, Engaged, Knowledgeable RESPECTFUL and RITEOUS :-} Ta!

Wow. That was a good interview

Excellent ... rocked it big time!

Got the message out the the public wants more information from experts.

I love how you were explaining... that's what this word means, that's what that word means. So good.

Man, that Ian Jessop is one smart, cool headed investagative reporter. Kudos for his excellent public service. he deserves an award! Thank-You Ian for your #1 work!

[the] opening descriptors were so wonderfully straightforward and simplified ... had me listening with new thoughts!

Especially liked your pizza oven example to explain gasification! Brilliant!

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Tuesday, 5 May 2015

Tertiary Distributed with Gasification - Pivotal IRM & Biowater Technology



These are my notes, reworked a little, to capture the amazing information that came forward from a vendor at the Westside Innovation Days. Thursday April 30th.
Presenters: Chris Corps, Graeme Bethell, Laura Marcolini, Jack Gardner
Representing: Biowater Technology and Pivotal's Advanced Gasification
Laura is President of Biowater USA. And Jack is a wastewater advisor to Pivotal
Biowater is Norwegian based technology company that has offices in the US and manufactures their technology in Norway, US and Canada.  

The presentation started with Pivotal explaining that their mission is to build waste management systems that recycle everything.  For example, in the same way that Dockside Green recycles 100% of the treated water.

Pivotal presented a complete sewage treatment and sludge management system for the Region.  The treatment process included:

Raw sewage being treated by Salsnes Filters as primary treatment which removes primary sludge, dewaters it and the water is then passed on to a secondary treatment process called Continuous Flow Intermediate Cleaning treatment (CFIC where nitrogen and organics are removed).  The secondary treated sewage is then passed through ultra fine Ceramic Membranes (tertiary treatment) to remove all the solids and other contaminants such as drug resistant bacteria, microfibers and micro plastics, etc.  The water from the membranes can be fully recycled and reused just like it is at Dockside Green.  The secondary sludge is also passed through the Salsnes Filter and dewatered.  Both the primary and secondary dewatered sludge is then processed and fed into a gasifier to produce heat and power.  All of the components for this treatment system are modular in design and can be implemented just-in-time when needed.

The design for this treatment system was for the primary treatment to be based on 4x ADWF, and the secondary treatment to be based on 2x ADWF.  Prior to primary treatment which removes about 50% of the solids from the sewage, grit and trash is removed by coarse screening.  The first stage of CFIC removes nitrogen, the second and third stages remove organic material. This CFIC process is the next generation advancement of MBBR (Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor) technology.  The tertiary membrane treatment operates similar to the hollow fibre membranes (Zee Weed brand). However there are some advantages including longer lasting and easier to clean, thus lower operating costs.

Very clean effluent that can be reused to flush toilets, irrigate landscaping and discharged to the inner harbour waters as is done by Dockside Green’s sewage treatment plant.

The sludge is then passed onto an Advanced Circle Draft gasification plant which is based on proven technology used in Austria and Italy..  The Advanced Circle Draft Gasifier has some features that make it more suitable for this application compared to Pivotal’s Fluidized Bed Gasifier.  The Circle Draft is better suited to the volume of sludge produced, can be installed in modules and produces a cleaner syngas.  There are three plants in operation in Europe and California and a new plant can easily be delivered inside of 12 months.  The Advanced Gasification plants can be manufactured locally in Sidney BC.

In the proposal the total amount of daily sludge produced could be transported from the treatment plants to the gasifier in 7 trips per day for whole region.

The gasifier has no air emissions. It produces only syngas, heat and biochar and ash. When you use the syngas in a power generator the emissions are comparable to burning natural gas.  Commercial plants have been in operation since 2002 in Gussing. In Cherasco Italy since 2007. In last few years five new plants have been built using this technology.  

The Circle Draft gasifier has been tested using 50/50 mixtures of sludge and biomass in Cherasco Italy. Each gasifier has a small 3m  (10 feet)  square footprint and are very inexpensive compared to traditional sewage sludge treatment like anaerobic digesters.

One gasifier would suit a small community of 10,000 people based on the estimated amount of waste generated and due to the low cost of implementation while providing the benefits outlined for resource recovery.

The only moving part of the gasifier is the bucket conveyor to feed the system. Otherwise nothing moves. It operates at atmospheric pressure. The gasification temperature is 1000 degrees Celsius. This technology meets the BC Clean Energy Act so it can participate in the BC Hydro Standing Offer Program for clean renewable energy.

The concept presented can handle all the sludge for the CRD plus 60% of solid waste. Have tested and proven a lot of waste streams. Destroys drug resistant bacteria, micro plastics, etc.

The energy output based on 108 ML/d sewage volume and 29 tonne/day sludge volumes produces 120 M wHrs/day electricity and 190 M wHrs of heat, every day.  The process also produces carbon biochar, that is almost pure carbon in nature, that has many uses in industrial filters. The process also produces 45 ML/year distilled water.

The presenters showed a case study listing with about 34 facilities. Many are retro-fit. Some are new.  A 25 MLD sized facility needs a 25m x 50m footprint which was roughly the size of the presentation room where we heard the presentation.  No need for 2km outfalls.  It would not need to be sited on the waterfront.  It can be better integrated throughout the region.

One of the outcomes from implementing similar renewable energy systems in Europe has been that they stimulate the local economy: through creation of many new local jobs, the green thermal energy attracts manufacturing and high tech, R&D, training and tourism! People want to see this technology.

The presentation showed that the annual revenues make this proposal $45M better than the CRD/Seaterra Plan for each year of operation.

Biowater/Pivotal can handle all the Westshore sewage flows in one site that is approximately the size of a city lot.

For the whole region Pivotal/Biowater capital costs are about $250M vs CRD Plan costing $782M.  This $250M includes land acquisition, trucks, buildings, redundant systems, training, uniforms, etc, etc, etc,.  A very detailed analysis.

The proposal uses the existing pipe infrastructure and includes costs for local connections to the new facilities.

In summary, it can be structured to be a profitable business rather than a drain on taxpayers.  It can save taxpayers $ billions in operating costs and debt charges over the life of the facilities. The technology is proven and stable in several countries. New plants are coming on-line all the time. They are very small in size and can be put where you want them to maximize use of existing infrastructure and resource recovery. The systems would be future proof because it exceeds all the performance requirements and standards and can be easily expanded when needed.

The I&I in the region is significant problem. Esquimalt has done a lot to solve leaking sewer pipes. Because it uses less budget the region can reallocate money into fixing the pipes first and then you don't need to build a big plant. Pipes are a 100yr investment.   This proposal does not need new pipes.

Question from audience: are there any odours in the bucket feed system? Answer: no because there is no moisture left in the sludge which has been pelletized and sterilized so very low odour.

Can the gasifiers be distributed throughout the community?  The presenters suggest that the minimal cluster might be 3-4 gasifiers at one site.  There would be a one or two processing centres but the gasifiers should be distributed. For siting the processing facility and gasifiers would need about 1.5 acre but distributed gasifiers could be located on a city residential lot.


Regards
Bryan Gilbert


Innovation Days:

Presentation slides:
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Monday, 4 May 2015

RITE Planners Update #5 - Monday May 4, 2015


Introduction

The R.I.T.E plan has been validated.
Last Wednesday, thanks to the leadership of Lisa Helps, the public and the CRD had a very Respectful discussion. That is the R we’ve been asking for.   Seems like this will continue too!
Last week, at the Westside Innovation presentations, we heard from a local vendor who confirmed the I, T, and E is feasible too!
Innovative water treatment that produces fully reusable water combined with locally manufactured gasification systems to handle the residuals; all done with redundancy; modularity and using existing pipes in the ground.
Taxpayer friendly because the capital costs are, as we've been saying for years, significantly lower than the Seaterra plan. PLUS we can make money each year.
Environmentally beneficial because the water is fully reusable and the toxins in the residual solids are completely destroyed leaving a biochar product with many uses.
RITE was right! For years some people have discounted our observations saying there were no hard numbers. Well now we've been vindicated.


Reset Trust With a Respectful Dialog

Last week’s public event at the Royal BC Museum was a success. Lisa Helps has welcomed the audience and outlined what has changed. She acknowledges that the past has been a collective failure but now we have a collective opportunity to succeed.  She set a tone that the audience clearly liked.  
After the event I had the privilege to listen to the professional facilitators who came to help.  They were excited and clearly thought the event was a success.  One facilitator said the people at his round table had a lot of tension. They were very distrustful and angry about the past. Yet they set those tensions aside to share information with fellow citizens.
Another memorable quote:  “It was a valuable evening and, for the first time ever, I did not leave angry and feeling completely disenfranchised.”

Compared to every other CRD sponsored sewage event these past years this event was a turning point.

One critical metric to watch for: will the collected information disappear into CRD offices? or will it come back to each and every public event?   I’ve been told the goal is to bring this information back each time so these conversations build on each other.  Transparency at work builds trust.


How is that possible? Sewage treatment for so cheap?
How is it possible the whole region’s sewage can be treated for, perhaps, $250 million?  That seems impossible considering the CRD/Seaterra plan was $782 million.

Well, it is not hard to explain.  Just break the project into Water, Conveyance, and Residuals.




Water Treatment
The Seaterra estimate to build the secondary waste water treatment facility is, $179 million.  The vendor’s estimate is $200 million, for tertiary distributed. Many vendors of wastewater systems are promoting systems that are smaller and more efficient.   For sake of discussion, let’s be conservative and increase the vendor’s estimate by 50% to $300 million.

Tertiary costs more than secondary. No question. But ….

Conveyance


Seaterra’s McLoughlin project was estimated to cost $365 million.  As noted above the secondary treatment is estimated at $179 Million.  That is $186 million in tunnels, outfalls and extra stuff that is NOT needed with distributed tertiary.  But, the Seaterra plan also includes big projects like pump stations and attenuation tanks.  Total cost for tunnels, ocean outfalls, attenuation tanks and pump stations: $272 million.

The vendor said none of this is needed if you do distributed tertiary.  No need for ocean outfalls, no need for over sizing the plant because the distributed facilities provide redundancy.  No need for attenuation tanks or pump stations because you treat the sewage where it is now. You use existing pipes.

Let’s be conservative and say the vendor is wrong and we need, ballpark, $50 million for a few new pipes or whatever.  (or to go towards what has been spent so far!)

References:
782 total - 330 Hartland - 180 McLoughlin wastewater only  = 272 extras.

Residuals: Bio-digestion vs. Gasification

Here is where we save a lot.  Seaterra’s plan spends $330 million to run a 18 km pipe from the ocean up to Hartland Landfill and back again. It uses anaerobic digestion to convert roughly half the residuals into methane gas (20x worse than CO2) and leaves the rest to be used “beneficially” up island (which means the residuals will be spread on land).

Contrast this with gasification: which is cheap.   Hamilton Ontario is building a gasifier to treat 170,000 tonnes of municipal waste and sewage sludge for $37 million.  The vendor, Pivotal IRM, says they can do all this region for $50 million;  we’ve talked with other experts who are working on projects for sewage sludge alone that cost just $20 million.  So, clearly, gasification is cheap compared to anaerobic digestion at Hartland.
Our conservative estimate: $75 million yet, clearly, this is an area where we can save more.
Vendor’s estimate $50 million.
Seaterra project $330 million.


Totals

Seaterra capital costs $782 million
Tertiary Distributes with Gasification (conservative estimate) $425 million
Tertiary Distributes with Gasification (vendor estimate) $250 million

The vendor’s estimate is attractive but whether you think it is true or not it is clear that we need to explore the options of Tertiary Distributed wastewater treatment combined with Gasification for residuals.

And we haven’t even mentioned the amazing other benefits of this approach
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