ReVenture technology to be unveiled

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Next month, Charlotte-based Forsite Development will answer a question that has been on the minds of many.

On Dec. 2, the company is expected to announce the technology that will be used at ReVenture Park to convert waste to electricity, according to discussion Friday during a meeting of the Mecklenburg County ReVenture Advisory Council.

The Mecklenburg County Waste Management Advisory Board formed the council to investigate the pros and cons of the proposed waste-to-energy plant, but they have been unable to form specific questions and answers because the technology hasn’t been unveiled.

Forsite announced in October that it will team with Charlotte-based FCR Recycling to design and run a key component of ReVenture Park: the $30 million recycled-fuel facility that developers say will keep approximately 340,000 tons of waste annually from winding up in local landfills.

FCR also handles the single-stream recycling program for Mecklenburg County and operates recycling facilities across the U.S. and a waste-to-energy plant in Maine.

ReVenture Park is a 667-acre eco-industrial park being developed on the former Clariant Corp. chemical plant site in western Mecklenburg County. The location along the Catawba River is a Superfund site, a federal designation given to heavily contaminated areas that pose health and environmental risks. Superfund itself is the name of the federal government’s program to clean up those sites. Forsite is working with state officials to change the site’s status to brownfield.

In addition to the power plant, plans include a wastewater-treatment facility, a 4-megawatt solar field on a 25-acre closed landfill and a 185-acre conservation easement and trail system along Long Creek basin that will connect the Carolina Thread Trail and the U.S. National Whitewater Center.

The facility is slated to be operational in April of 2012, prior to July 2012 when the county’s contract with Charlotte Motor Speedway Landfill — the county’s only municipal solid-waste landfill — ends.

Environmental groups, including the Piedmont chapter of the Sierra Club, have expressed concerns about emissions from the plant.

Tara Ramsey can be reached at [email protected].