Posted on: Wednesday, June 19, 2002

EDITORIAL
Keep H-POWER going as options explored

Some City Council members are challenging Mayor Jeremy Harris' $70 million plan to expand Honolulu's H-POWER trash-to-energy plant.

They contend the city should be looking at more cutting-edge alternatives to garbage disposal than "antiquated" trash-to-energy, which produces tons of ash that has to be buried in our already-crammed landfills.

Now, we all agree that Hawai'i's landfills are reaching a critical mass and that alternatives to curb a never-ending river of waste are desperately needed. So why limit Hawai'i to one technology when we could have several to satisfy various objectives? Developing alternatives to waste disposal include:

• Plasma arc, an electrical energy process that reduces waste to little more than gases. The process can also convert H-POWER ash into crystallized glass lava or "glassphalt" for road resurfacing.

• Anaerobic digestion, which decomposes organic material without using oxygen, to create methane gas for various fuels.

• Hydromex, which would recycle treated lumber and car parts and mix them with polymers to create a wood-like product that could be used for building materials.

All these technologies deserve serious consideration. But bear in mind that it's going to take at least a couple of years to implement any of them. Meantime, we need to find a way to keep trash out of our landfills, which are rapidly running out of space.

About 450,000 tons of garbage go to the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill on the Leeward Side each year, according to a report by staff writer Scott Ishikawa. The landfill is expected to hit capacity this year, and residents of the area understandably don't want it expanded.

As it stands, the city's low-polluting H-POWER plant can consume some 2,000 tons of garbage a day. The trash that is burned in furnaces produces steam that drives a turbine generator. That electricity produces 7 percent of O'ahu's electricity and reduces the amount of refuge going to landfills.

It could do more.

Long Beach in Los Angeles County has operated a waste-to-energy plant for nearly 14 years. The plant handles much of the city's trash and generates electricity for up to 35,000 homes.

Harris says he wants to expand Oahu's H-POWER plant while the city explores other ways to dispose of trash that can't be incinerated at the plant. We're inclined to agree that H-POWER should be up and running while the city looks into other alternatives.

But when we say running, we mean running. Over the past year, the plant was closed for 180 days for maintenance, which meant more garbage in the landfills.

Let's make full use of the H-POWER plant as we look into alternative technologies to take the pressure off our landfills.