Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Feb 20/02) - A team of German investors and local government representatives will meet in Yellowknife later this month to talk about burning garbage.

Their idea is to evaluate the city's dump as a location for a garbage incinerator, which could reduce up to 80 per cent of the city's solid waste to ashes.

A private company would install the German-made incinerators, and use the resulting heat to generate electricity and heat buildings within a 10 kilometre radius of the incinerator.

"If wishes were fishes, theoretically there could be the potential to expand the life of the current (dump) site indefinitely," said the city's economic development director Peter Neugebauer. "If we're able to do that, maybe you would save the cost of closing down one landfill and not opening another."

The electricity generated could also reduce the city's dependency on diesel-fuelled power.

"It seems like a good idea because relative to most other places in western Canada, Yellowknife has an undeveloped recycling system," said Ron MacDonald, a senior consultant for Technology Brokers in Edmonton. "That means the amount of waste per person that is going into the landfill has to be very high."

MacDonald has already paid the Yellowknife dump one visit, and will return with a pair of German investors Feb. 25 and 26. They will also address the city's priorities, policies and budget committee.

Incineration technology has undergone massive changes in the past decades. Computer technology and the use of ultra-hot flames have made relatively clean-burning devices possible.

Proponents of the technology point to Germany, where nine cities currently use these incinerators. They argue that if the units can meet stringent German emissions standards, they should be considered environmentally viable.

Although the idea is still in its infancy, it is meeting with guardedly positive response, despite a need for more information.

"That's awesome," said Matthew Grogono, who sat on a solid waste committee for the city.

"It has tremendous potential," he added, although he warned that it needs to be "intelligently integrated" with the city's new solid waste management program.

Walt Humphries, who sat on the same committee, also cautiously welcomed the idea.

"I wouldn't mind an incinerator for 40 per cent of the garbage," he said. "But I hate to see stuff that can be composted put into an incinerator."

Humphries also warned that such a proposal could jeopardize scavenging at the dump.

"That's a valuable resource for those of us in the North," he said. "A lot of people get firewood there."

Others have questioned burning cardboard and wood, which make up about 40 per cent of the waste stream. Should those be diverted from the waste stream for recycling instead of burning?

MacDonald suggested that financially speaking, it could be more economically beneficial to incinerate paper products than to recycle them.

Many more questions need to be answered before city decision-makers make a decision.

City director of public works Greg Kehoe had a number of them: "Is all garbage able to be burned? How much garbage would it take for a payback? What type of electrical costs would there be?"

And even beyond acceptance by the city, one crucial question will be answered by the Germans when they survey the site: can Yellowknife support an incinerator?

"There's lots of economics that have to be worked out to actually establish if this is the best thing for the city of Yellowknife," said MacDonald.

Burning issue

- An incinerator like the one being proposed can generate about 0.65 MW of heat per tonne of solid waste (in Germany; the heat value of Yellowknife waste has yet to be determined). Between 20 and 30 per cent of that can be turned into electricity, said Ron MacDonald, one of the proponents of the technology who is coming to Yellowknife next week.

- In 2000, Yellowknife produced almost 17,000 tonnes of solid waste, which could theoretically produce 2.75 GW of electricity (again, using German heat values). By comparison, Northwest Territories Power Corporation used 14.8 GW from the Jackfish diesel generating station last year.