Japan facility similar to one proposed for Koochiching County

Commissioner Wade Pavleck said after his visit to Japan in May that he “learned a lot” during the trip to see a working plasma gasification facility.
Koochiching County is in the process of completing a five-month feasibility study for a proposed plasma gasification facility.
The feasibility study is intended to determine whether to move forward with a proposal to construct a plasma gasification facility, also known as the Renewable Energy Clean Air Project. The facility would use a plasma arc to vaporize about 100 tons of garbage a day from northern Minnesota and possibly Ontario. Gasifying the waste is considered a green solution to a costly concern.
While visiting the Japan facility, Pavleck could see the environmental “footprint” the facility left versus the footprint of a landfill, he said. It doesn’t compare, he said.
The plasma gasification facility does not have an odor and it is clean, he said.
Pavleck said the county needs to take a more aggressive approach to the proposed project and take the initiative to move forward. It’s a county infrastructure project, instead of economic development, he said.
At the end of the day, “it falls to the five (commissioners),” he said at the May Koochiching Development Authority meeting.
He proposed establishing a county committee that would include a project manager and a project attorney.