Photo: Cielo Waste Solutions.

By Curtis Galbraith

Plant that would produce fuel out of garbage may come to Southern Alberta

Jan 9, 2020 | 9:42 AM

A pair of companies are hoping to build a plant that produces fuel from feedstock derived from garbage.

Grande Prairie based Renewable U Energy and Red Deer-based Cielo Waste Solutions would produce a fuel that is blended with diesel at refineries.

Cielo also wants to establish plants in Brooks, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge.

Renewable U co-founder and CEO Lionel Robins says currently, a lot of the fuel used in blends is brought here from overseas. Regulations require that diesel produced in Canada be blended with renewable fuels and companies like Suncor and Husky are using it.

“We have a bit of a funny joke where we say you got this desire to be green with this renewable fuel plan mandate and to get to the mandate, we’re shipping it in big ships halfway around the world to then say we are green.”

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He adds they are not taking away anything from local energy companies and that it makes more sense to use local garbage here to produce fuel, rather than shipping that waste all over the world.

Robins says the goal is to create something locally that oil and gas companies are already buying. It would use any type of waste, except glass, metal, and minerals.

“Pretty much everything else that’s in a landfill. It doesn’t just have to be landfills. We’ve signed a deal with CP Rail to process 500,000 old rail ties a year, or more. They will get us as much as they can, but a minimum of 500,000, grind them up and convert them into renewable diesel. Ideally, our goal would be to sell it back to them and (they would) use it right in the locomotives.”

Robins says they have been looking at possible locations for this facility with the City and County.

“We’ve got it narrowed down to a few. The CEO of Cielo has flown up a few times. We’ve done some site visits. We’re getting there. We’ve started the engineering process to take the test plant that we have in Aldersyde and then kind of work that into a full size, full scale (plant). This one in Grande Prairie will be the first full scale, full-size refinery.”

Robins estimates there would be 40-50 construction jobs at the plant and that it could be built and commissioned within 12-18 months. A lot of it would be automated, but Robins adds there would still be 20-25 people working there once it is complete.