Web exclusive posted March 18, 2008 at 2:50 p.m. CST
The city of Cheyenne, Wyo., won't be pelletizing its landfill waste-at least not in the near future. The city had been in negotiations with GEI Waste Systems, a division of GEI Development, to install a VR-95 Extruder, which would process the city's municipal solid waste (MSW) into fuel pellets that could be sold as a coal replacement to an industrial end user.
Instead, the city elected to focus on short-term solutions because it has four years or less of landfill space left. "We haven't stopped negotiations at this point, but we have made recommendations on the direction we should go in, which is diversion," said Vicki Nemecek, assistant public works director. The city, which is negotiating a contract to haul the MSW to a nearby landfill, plans to recycle the construction and demolition debris and hopes to move into full city-wide, single-stream recycling at the residential level, she said. "We think [GEI's proposed project] would have been useful," Nemecek said. "However, we have immediate needs. That process is not immediate. We have to build a $2.5 million building, [GEI has] to do permitting and establish contracts to purchase the pellet product. That could be a two- to four-year process. We can't wait two to four years. We chose to do something now."
While the door isn't closed to GEI, Nemecek said short-term solutions are taking a priority over long-term considerations. "Right now, Wyoming has integrated solid waste management planning," she said. "We would like to go through that process, which would be complete July 1, 2009, and look at the options that our consultant is going to offer."
Meanwhile, GEI President Larry Giroux said his company is still pursuing options, such as alternate financing for the project and a signed contract for the pellets. "If we went to them with a signed contract or if we could find alternate financing, it would probably go ahead," he said. "The money and time frame of their situation didn't allow us to go forward at this time, but they still don't have a long term solution."
GEI, which specializes in a number of different waste solutions, is actively pursuing projects throughout North America. "We're trying to secure long-term, major financing for these projects, and we're getting very close," Giroux said. "We're looking in Toronto, Boston and Virginia. We're also working on projects in South America. I'm working with a gentleman from Ecuador on palm-oil methane recovery."
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