Should We Vaporize Marion Trash?

Burning trash isn’t exactly the most environmentally friendly way of getting rid of waste.

But what if we could use a plasma laser so strong that when it is concentrated on waste, it completely breaks the trash down to individual molecules?

Sound farfetched? Hardly. The technology exists to do it right now, and it could be coming to Linn County soon.

This process is called plasma arc technology. The end product is an inert rock and what's called Syngas, a vapor with similar properties to natural gas, which can be used to generate steam or electricity. It’s entirely possible that either Marion or Cedar Rapids will be the first city in the U.S. to utilize the technology.

Marion City Administrator Lon Pluckhahn, said the city is getting close to drawing a contract with Plasma Power LLC, a Florida based company specializing in plasma arc technology.

Still, the process has taken over half a decade to get to this point. Pluckhahn said this is because of the technology’s relatively untested nature.

"We are approaching it with caution,” he said. "If we are the first ones to use it, we would want to get it right."

Pluckhahn said the benefits of the technology are three-fold. It disposes of trash in a relatively environmentally friendly way, creates steam that can be transported to industrial facilities, attracting industrial businesses to the area that would be attracted by the advantage of readily available steam.

There are four likely sites for the facility, one in Marion and three in Cedar Rapids. The city manager said that before the plans are finalized, Plasma Power LLC will have to prove its viability by finding a customer basis of businesses willing to buy the steam.

Additionally, it means they have to find a source that can provide approximately 500 tons of waste a day to power the facility.

However, the city is not going it alone in its efforts to get the technology to Marion.

Waste Not Iowa, a Marion based environmental group, began work on the project around six years ago, said Charlie Kress, treasurer and spokesman the Marion based advocacy group. This was right after the Iowa Solid Waste Agency relocated a landfill to Marion, near the corner of County Home Road and Highway 13.

Kress said when he found out about plasma arc technology, it seemed like the perfect solution to the unsightly problem the dump brought.

"It is environmentally clean," he said. "It is cleaner than almost any other method of (creating) electricity."

Since getting started not he project, Kress estimated he has done over a hundred presentations pitching the technology, mostly in Iowa.  Kress said he can’t say for sure when the facility will be completed, but if Plasma Power LLC wants to take advantage of federal loans and grants, which he thinks they will, it will need to be up and running before the end of 2013.

Whether it appears in Cedar Rapids or Marion, Kress said Plasma Power LLC is committed to doing business in the area, which means the hundred plus educational meetings on plasma arc technology have not gone to waste.

"I don’t want to call it a miracle, but it certainly is something," he said.