Edmonton is about to go one step further. Ninety percent of our residential waste will be diverted from the landfill and made into ethanol, by 2010!!!
A new ethanol plant is expected to turn most of Edmonton’s garbage into green fuel by late 2010.
“There’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world,” says Don Pierce, executive vice-president of GreenField Ethanol, which will operate the site.
The 2.5-acre plant will be the world’s first industrial-scale fuel-to-ethanol facility.
It will produce 36 million litres of biofuel each year, which Pierce says will end up at Alberta gas pumps.
“Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline and, more importantly, it’s keeping the price of gasoline down by about 20 cents a litre,” he says. Biofuels are mixed with gasoline before they are used in vehicles.
The plant will turn landfill into ethanol by burning materials like wood, cloth and non-recyclable plastic, says Vincent Chornet, president of Enerkem, which is teaming up with GreenField Ethanol to build the plant.
The process creates an ash byproduct, which can be used as an aggregate for cement.
“If you do it right, you won’t have anything (going) back to the landfill,” Chornet says.
When the facility opens, 90 per cent of Edmonton’s residential waste will be diverted from landfill.
So, Toronto are you still trucking (tisk, tisk, think of all those GHG's) your garbage to the US?? Come on out here to green Alberta, you can take some lessons from us "conserv"atives. We don't just cry and whine, we "get 'er done". Bet Dion wants to tax that too, the green shaft is a tax on everything, and good for noone.
Question. Why don't apartment dwellers have to recycle? What makes them less polluting then us homeowners? Maybe you apartment dwellers can tell me I'm wrong on this point.
