Alter Nrg / Westinghouse

Westinghouse Plasma Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alter Nrg, a publicly traded company on the TSX Venture Exchange.

Full Review:
This new report is based on analysis conducted during 2008 and assessments of the Utashinai and Mihama-Mikata plasma gasification plants in Japan and the Waltz Mill pilot facility in the USA.

This Canadian company acquired the Westinghouse plasma gasification technology (considered to be a world leader in plasma torch systems) and has subsequently developed a number of commercial waste processing configurations.

As such, the company is attracting considerable attention worldwide.  The Westinghouse technology has two reference plants in Japan and a pilot facility in Waltz Mill in the USA which Juniper visited in May 2008 to assess the performance of the technology.  These facilities are aimed at producing power, via IGCC, steam, ethanol and other added value products from feedstocks including MSW; MSW and tyres; coal and wood; petcoke, and hazardous wastes.

What’s in the review:
This review is the most comprehensive, up-to-date independent assessment of this key technology.  It reports our assessment of the performance of the reference plants; evaluates the new process concepts being marketed by AlterNRG; and describes the reasons why the technology concept is of interest.  It also identifies key milestones that need to be achieved.  It summarises our overall independent perspective of this technology relative to competitive approaches.

This is an invaluable, independent review that is essential reading for anyone interested in the Westinghouse plasma technology and AlterNRG’s integration of this into waste processing concepts or, more broadly, the use of plasma gasification to generate energy or resources from waste and biomass.

Table of Contents

Historical Development

The Process Concept being promoted by Alter Nrg

Waste handling and pre-treatment

Plasma gasification reactor

Air separation unit

Syngas cleaning

Energy production and utilisation

Waste water treatment

Material and energy balance

Thermal efficiency of the process

Current Commercial Status

Waste to Energy projects

Commercial orders

Economics

Process Performance

Operating plants processing MSW

Operational performance

Business Focus and Market Strategy

Market strategy

Project delivery

Strategic relationships

Syngas conversion to added-value products

Co-gasification of coal and biomass

Gasification of MSW to ethanol

Gasification of petcoke

Coal to liquids(CTL)

Juniper’s Opinion

Date of publication: November 2008
Price: 220 UK Pounds
Number of pages: 62
Format: Downloadable pdf.