Paris Moayedi
A high-tech company chaired by Paris Moayedi, the former Jarvis boss, is looking to raise up to £1bn to build at least 10 new waste-to-energy plants over the next three years.
Swindon-based Advanced Plasma Power uses a novel proprietary process to convert material that would normally go to landfill into a clean gas that can be used to generate electricity. Advanced Plasma Power chief executive Rolf Stein says this is more efficient than the traditional waste-to-energy processes which incinerate the waste.
“APP uses much smaller plant too, which means that a plant big enough to handle 150,000 tonnes a year of residual waste and to generate enough electricity to power 20,000 homes can be fitted into a 15m high, 10,000m2 shed,” says Stein. “This is about the same size as a retail warehouse commonly located on the edge of towns. The exhaust is a maximum 25m high, compared with the 80m chimneys of most incinerators.”
”This makes it less visually obtrusive,” adds Moayedi, which hopefully should make it easier to get planning permission.
Rolf Stein
Moayedi set up APP as a spin-off from British engineering firm Tetronics, a specialist plasma technology company that he and other private investors bought in 2004 (see box below). Other investors in APP include US private equity fund, Leveraged Green Energy, which has put nearly £20m into the venture.
Building energy-to-waste plants is set to become big business as legislation such as the European Landfill Directive is forcing councils to reduce the amount of rubbish they send to landfill. This has to come down to 35% by 2020, otherwise heavy fines will be imposed. Tax on landfill is also expected to rise to £80 a tonne in 2014 from the current rate of £56 per tonne.
A report published in August by the Associate Parliamentary Resource Group claimed that the UK needed to invest £8bn in waste infrastructure by 2020 if we are to meet our EU targets. However, lack of private finance in the wake of the credit crunch is hampering the construction of new energy-to-waste plants.
Stein says APP hopes to get the go-ahead for the first commercial plant towards the end of 2012. Each plant is expected to cost about £80m. It is in discussions with several waste collection companies and contractors which could become joint venture partners.
The technology is already set to be used in Belgium by Group Machiels, which is planning to dig up decades of rubbish from the biggest landfill site in Flanders, recycle the precious materials and generate energy from what is left using APP’s plasma technology.
The Belgian company aims to mine 500,000 tonnes a year. Half the waste material will be recycled the other half will go into an APP Gasplasma plant, producing energy, Plasmarok — a granite-like by-product — and heat for greenhouses growing vegetables.
A light bulb moment
APP is a spin-off from British plasma specialist Tetronics, which was set up in 1964 to develop commercial applications for plasma technology. These range from recovering precious metals from spent catalytic converters to vitrifying low and intermediate level radioactive waste. Paris Moayedi and other investors bought Tetronics in 2004 and quickly spotted that one such application, which could be commercialised, was turning waste into electricity.
Turning up the heat on landfill waste
Plasma technology is about superheating waste that might otherwise go to landfill in an oxygen-deprived environment, resulting in a clean synthesis gas that can be used to power engines and create electricity.
The process also produces lava that cools to form a black, glass-like substance known as Plasmarok. APP is hoping that this will find use as a building material.
Unlike incineration, the process produces no dioxins and very little ash. Metal-based waste and glass is sorted out of the rubbish before it is fed into the plant. Although plasmas are used around the world for breaking down and removing harmful products from industrial processes, no other firm has been able to use this to turn waste into electricity in engines reliably.
APP is succeeding because it is using the plasma process in tandem with a gasifier, which heats the waste to 850oC before it goes into the plasma chamber containing an arc of lightning between 5,000 and 8,000oC. The intense heat, together with ultraviolet light, breaks down long-chain carbon products such as dioxins. The gas produced is rich in hydrogen and carbon monoxide that is perfect for combustion and electricity generation.
APP has patented this combination of gasifier and plasma chamber in more than 50 countries.
