A feasibility study for a proposed plasma gasification facility was kicked off Thursday with players gathering to explain the project to the public.
The feasibility study is expected to examine the economic and environmental impacts, as well as the technology, of building a plasma gasification facility in Koochiching County, which could be the first facility built in the United States.
Engineering firm R.W. Beck is expected to provide an independent recommendation in the study for the Renewable Energy Clean Air Project. Consultants firm Coronal, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Westinghouse Plasma Corporation are also participating in the study.
“We’re here to say we’re ready to start,” Coronal Chief Financial Officer John Howard said, noting that Thursday’s meeting was a “significant milestone.”
The study is expected to take five months, according to Howard.

Why Koochiching County?
The project has been led by Koochiching County Commissioner Mike Hanson, who believes that there has to be a better solution to putting garbage into the ground.
The plasma gasification project is a chance for Koochiching County to be on the cutting edge of technology and add “green” jobs to its work force, Hanson said.
Several issues are driving the need for a plasma gasification project in Minnesota.
Two million tons of waste are going into the ground annually in the state, Howard said.
The state adopted a waste management solution 20 years ago, which means the state has an aging waste-to-energy infrastructure, Howard said. And the state has a rate of 40 percent of materials being recycled, a percentage that the state can improve on, Howard said, comparing Minnesota’s rate to Japan’s percentage of nearly 80 percent.
The United States has a lot of land compared to other countries, so creating landfills is easy, according to Tom Gdeniec, of Westinghouse, which supplies the torches used in the facilities.
Other countries have less land mass and are looking for alternative ways to dispose of waste. Three plasma gasification facilities have been built in Japan and two are in the process of being built in India, according to Gdeniec.
Coronal hopes to show that the technology can work in the U.S. with the building of a facility, said Howard.
While Koochiching County is not the only area in the U.S. considering a plasma gasification project, it is the first, Gdeniec said.
There was a need for a regional solution to waste, Howard said.
Factors that led to International Falls being an ideal location for a facility are: access with an airport, transportation, industrial manufacturing already existing in the area, community leadership that has an open mind, and a financial need in the community, said Howard.
The facility is expected to be built using local parts and labor, according to Gdeniec. It would also provide jobs in the community because Westinghouse trains local labor to maintain its torches in the facility, he said.
The technology
Throughout the meeting, explanations of how the plasma gasification facility system would work were given.
Municipal solid waste, which is made up of trash and organic material, would be brought into the facility on garbage trucks. Now, Koochiching County is transporting its waste to Kittson County, which costs the county $700,000 annually, Howard said.
The proposed facility for Koochiching County would process 150 tons of waste daily, according to Gdeniec. The county produces 80,000 tons annually.
A “wasteshed” includes counties that could potentially transport their waste to International Falls. Those counties include Beltrami, Cass, Clearwater, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake of the Woods, Pennington and St. Louis counties, said Howard.
The air above the waste in the holding area where it is dumped is sucked into the facility and used in the process, eliminating odors from the waste, according to Gdeniec.
The waste is then dropped into a gasifier that has plasma torches at the bottom of it. The torches, which are manufactured by Westinghouse, never touch the waste, but instead heat the air inside the gasifier to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Gdeniec. The air goes through the waste, breaking the solids into either a gas or a liquid. The gases and liquids can then be sold as several different products. The gas can be sold as synthetic gas or the liquid can be sold as slag.
Slag is made up of inorganic materials that come out of the liquids. When cooled, it turns into glass with the chemicals locked up inside, Gdeniec said. The amount of slag is determined by the amount of waste going into the process — 150 tons of waste will have a output of 1.5 tons of slag.
Slag can be used in bricks and material for roadbeds and construction, according to Howard.
Gasification of municipal solid waste is different than incinerating garbage. Howard compared the gasification process to a candle. If a candle is lit and a glass is put over the candle, the flame goes out due to a lack of oxygen. The process starves the environment of enough oxygen just short of causing combustion, Gdeniec said.
Fluorescent light bulbs operate with plasma, according to Howard, adding that the proposed facility is “your fluorescent light bulb on steroids.”