Waste-To-Energy Plant To Take a Tire-d Approach

Staff -- Consulting-Specifying Engineer, 6/1/2006

Toms River, N.J., will be the site of the first tires-to-ethanol plant, scheduled to go online in 2007, according to facility developers. The plant will bring together two technologies—one that produces a gas product called "plasma converted gas," and a second that converts that gas into commercial-grade ethanol for resale.

The $84 million facility will be financed by bonds issued by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. The plant will be designed by a partnership that includes Wilton, Conn.-based Startech Environmental Corp. and Washington, D.C.-based Fuel Frontiers, Inc. (FFI).

Startech's Plasma Converter System will destroy the discarded tires to produce the plasma converted gas, which technology developed by FFI will use to produce up to 52 million gallons of ethanol annually. The two companies also are in the planning stages to develop a second plant capable of producing 250 million to 500 million gallons of ethanol a year at a site in eastern Pennsylvania. This facility would use waste coal as its feedstock.