Mecklenburg County’s Land Use and Environmental Services Agency and Forsite Development issued press releases late yesterday announcing that the company has ended its quest to obtain your trash, which it planned to sift for valuable recycleables then feed to its gasification/incinerator hybrid at the so-called ReVenture eco-industrial park to generate energy.
This news followed the company’s decision to limit the plant to 10 megawatts of electricity generation because, Forsite President Tom McKittrick said, “The utility company we are negotiating with has informed us that their appetite for purchasing the renewable energy from ReVenture has been reduced.”
Read the company’s press release here. Note: “The utility” is Duke Energy, and, in general, it prefers to generate its own electricity, renewable or not.
And, the press release here is from the county. It also talks about asking the county to halt plans for a $100,000 independent study of the project and officially take Ballantyne’s Foxhole landfill off of the table as a potential dumping site for the project. Of course, nothing is official until it’s actually official, and the county isn’t slated to vote on these matters until June 7.
This announcement is just in time for a community meeting, which will be held Thurs., May 26, at 7:30 p.m. The meeting will be held at Cooks Presbyterian Church on Mount Holly Huntersville Road.
Some questions the attendees may want to consider:
If ReVenture is only going to run a 10 megawatt energy facility, but not with Mecklenburg County’s trash, where will the fuel come from?
The company has discussed using waste streams from businesses, specifically apartment complexes, to fuel its energy plant. Is that option still viable?
If the leftovers, including ash, aren’t going to be trucked to the Foxhole landfill, where will they go?
Can the plant still expand to 80 megawatt, as originally planned?
Does a 10 megawatt plant mean less regulation and less oversight?
Will the electricity generated by the plant be sold or used to power the industrial park?
Will environmental and health-impact studies be conducted?
What does this mean on the job-creation front? The plan was to bring in the plant’s designers from Kansas to run it for its first five years of operation; is this still the plan?
And, does this mean plans for the rest of ReVenture Park are going to evolve, too?
While the trash-to-energy plant has people concerned, and rightfully so, there are a lot of other parts of the proposed industrial complex that people may be excited about. Check out its “master plan.”
This article appears in May 24-30, 2011.
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
ReVenture is so much more than the safe energy from waste facility. And yet there are still those who, being no scientists or professionals of the technology, deter from the ultimate goal of making Charlotte a leader in sustainability. For all of the resonance that a “untested technology at ReVenture” received, one should look the energy from waste plant on the Baltimore Harbor. Open in 1984, this constantly monitored msw facility has the capacity to provide power to 40,000 homes.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=RESCOE_Plant
It has been meeting its requirements of emissions since the day it was built and local groups and residents reap the benefits.
I hope as a resident of Charlotte, Ms. Bowman will take a moment to learn about the possibilities that energy from waste has to offer, not just firing derailing comments at a progressive solution to Mecklenburg’s garbage problem.
Luke, why not read to the end before suggesting the author hasn’t done her homework, especially since she has and anyone who read her Charlotte magazine article on ReVenture or who has spoken to her on the topic knows that.
At the end of the above post she wrote “While the trash-to-energy plant has people concerned, and rightfully so, there are a lot of other parts of the proposed industrial complex that people may be excited about. Check out its “master plan.”
What you don’t like is that she questions this project instead of towing the company line or saluting the county commission as they attempt to shove this project down our throat.
ReVenture is not German, Danish, Japanese etc technology. It hasn’t been tested anywhere else. It may well be progressive, but all this author is asking for are for the community’s concerns to back addressed.
You, on the other hand, sound like you’re involved with this project in some way. Why don’t you explain yourself.
I’ve re-read this post several times now and find no evidence of the writer “firing derailing comments” at anyone or anything.
When did asking questions become the same thing as an attack? Why is it that whenever ReVenture’s people are around, you can only be fully for the project or its enemy.
Rhiannon questions authority as a matter of habit. We need more people like her and fewer yes-people like “Cool Hand Luke” and all the other paid ReVenture cronies trying to hush the public without answering their questions.
Hush little citizens, don’t say a word, big brother knows what’s best for his wallet and you’ll never know what caused your cancer, so don’t try to pin it on us. But do submit your resume here, hope you like the smell of trash.