A publication of Work On Waste USA, Inc., 82 Judson, Canton, NY 13617 315-379-9200 January 1992
...we see growth in the whole area of resource recovery
From ABBs 3/4 page ad in the Wall Street Journal,l
11-14-90, page C-13.
A little background on ABB: municipal waste incinerators
to nuclear reactors: ABB was formed in 1987 in
a merger that wed Swedens Asea to Switzerlands
Brown Boveri. Since then their business has been buying
up businesses across the globe. In the U.S. ABB bought
out Combustion Engineering for $1.6 billion and Westinghouses
transmission and distribution operations for $700 million. Worldwide
ABB has 230,000 employees and $27 billion in revenues (in
the U.S. its 30,000 employees and $6 billion in revenues).
ABB is the largest company in the world in three fields:
(1) leading supplier to the $50 billion electric power equipment
industry surpassing Westinghouse, GE & Mitsubishi;
(2) air pollution control technology ; and (3) railcar mass transit.
They seem to have everything spinning just right in their corporate
global orbit. But there seems to be a glitch on the American
front which perhaps wasnt factored into the bottom line:
that ordinary people who live in little, ordinary communities
dont want to play Russian-roulette with poisons any more.
That glitch spearheaded two recent permit denials for ABBs
Combustion Engineering proposed municipal waste incinerators:
an 800 tpd proposal denied a permit in November 1991 in Dakota
County, MN (see Waste Not #174), and a 2,250 tpd proposal
denied a permit in Chester, Delaware County, PA, in December 1991
(see Waste Not # 183). Perhaps because of these failures
the host benefit package in selling an ABB incinerator
is being made more tempting (see below). ABBs new
co-chairman is David de Pury, who last year was Switzerlands
ambassador to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade talks.
De Pury replaced Fritz Leutwiler who was a former president of
the Swiss central bank. The President and CEO of ABB is
Percy Barnevik.
As reported in Waste Not #174, residents of Mason County
first heard about an ABB incinerator proposal on 6-12-91.
The proposal to Mason County came through ABBs salesman,
Mr. John Kirby, but residents quickly became involved, and on
8-13-91 the Mason County Board voted unanimously to kill continued
study of the $150 million incinerator proposed to be built north
of Havana. But Mr. Kirby of KCI, Inc. (Kirby-Coffman of
Springfield, IL) defeated at the county level, persisted with
the City of Havana and on Nov. 29, 1991, he sent a 6-page letter
to Havanas mayor, Alan McNeil, offering the following:
1. KCI will advance the city of Havana (pop. 3,600) up
to $65,000 for a feasibility study on building an incinerator
in the city. Dr. Echol Bud Cook, an Associate Dean
of the College of Engineering and Technology at Southern Illinois
University in Carbondale, will lead a 4-member team to study the
environmental and ecological effects of a 1,000 tpd incinerator
in Havana. This study is expected to be complete in April 1992.
The city council of Havana passed a resolution on 12-3-91 agreeing
to the study. ABB will be the owner, builder and operator
of the incinerator of Havanas incinerator. 2.
Havana will receive a host fee of $1.50 per ton for the life
of the 1,000 tpd municipal waste incinerator operation. (The
county was offered $1 per ton). 3. Havana shall
be allowed to dispose of its household and commercial waste at
the facility in perpetuity and without paying a disposal fee.
4. If Havanas water system needs to be enlarged,
KCI agrees to build a water system for the City of Havana...and
KCI further agrees to pay the regular charge for water service,
less an amount necessary to amortize the capital cost paid by
KCI... 5. KCI will pay for a full time City incinerator
inspector. The full time inspector will report only to
the City....KCI will reimburse the City monthly for an amount
equal to the compensation, including fringe benefits paid to the
inspector. 6. The City and KCI will share
the income from the steam sold...with the City receiving 50% and
KCI receiving 50%...the City and KCI must mutually agree upon
the party to receive such steam or energy... 7.
KCI will furnish attorneys and pay for all costs of litigation
in the event the City is involved in litigation as a result
of the potential siting, or siting of the plant, or as a result
of the operation of the plant. For more information
on the Havana proposal contact: Dr. Dorothy Anderson, 122 E.
Elm St., Mason City, IL 62664. Tel: 217-482-3124.
SOME OF ABBS UNITS IN THE U.S.:
ABB Inc. In Stamford, CT. President &
CEO: Gerhard Schulmeyer. U.S. umbrella headquarters.
ABB Resource Recovery Systems. HQ in Windsor, CT.
President J.H. Miller. Operating municipal waste incinerators
- all RDFs: 2,000 tpd Hartford, CT; 2,200 tpd Honolulu, HI;
3,000 tpd Detroit, MI. In 1991 Kidder Peabody ranked
ABB as 5th in the waste-to-energy field.
ABB Flakt. HQ in Atlanta, GA. President, John
Camardella. World leader in air pollution control
technologies. (Flakt in English means fan). Air pollution controls
for gas, coal, electric, nuclear and waste industries (desulfurization,
ESPs, scrubbers, SO NOX), industrial fans and paint finishing
systems.
ABB Environmental Services. HQ in Portland,
ME. President: M. Dale Sands. An environmental consulting firm
which includes air quality engineering, hazardous waste site assessment
and remediation.
ABB Environmental Systems. HQ in Knoxville, TN.
President: William Scott.
ABB Sanitec. HQ in Winston Salem, NC.
This is a freestanding subsidiary of ABB Env. Services.
President: John Cusack. Sanitec is a microwave technology
for disinfecting medical waste. Currently this microwave technology
has been in use for the last year at the Forsythe Memorial Hospital
in Winston Salem, NC. New York State approved ABBs microwave
technology in Dec. 1991.
ABB Power Plant Business. Pres.: Richard
J. Slember. Coal burning power plants and natural gas turbines.
ABB Nuclear. President: Peter Van Nort. Part of
the power plant industries.
ABB Traction. HQ in Elmira Heights, NY.
President: Lutz Elsner. Worlds largest maker of railcar
mass transit. A high speed train for New York to Boston, developed
and manufactured by ABB, will be demonstrated in a joint
effort of Amtrak, the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration,
Swedish State Railways and ABB as early as 1992.
ABB Process Automation. President, Donald
Bogle. Controls for textile and paper mills.
Some ABB acquisitions and ventures: Bought the
W.German steam turbine business of AEG and inked a nuclear
reactor joint venture with Siemens-Business Week, 7-23-90,
pg.66; ABB Atom won contracts worth more than $115
from the Swedish Power Board for delivery of reload fuel to Swedens
three boiler water reactors-NYT, 11-30-90; signed joint
venture with Italys Finnemeccanica with sales of
$1.2 billion; in 1989 takes a 40% stake in Britains leading
railcar manufacturer, BREL; increased its ownership in
Vetco Gray to 100% from 19% of the voting stock.
Vetco Gray makes exploration and production equipment
for the offshore oil & gas industry- WSJ, 4-4-91, pg
A6; received a $200 million contract from Korea Electric Power
for two nuclear steam supply systems-WSJ, 7-24-91,
pg.C-12; received $166 million contract to install systems to
reduce sulfur dioxide emissions at a PA Electric Co. power station-WSJ,
9-13-91, pg.C-15; announced a joint venture with EJF Ltd.
in Czechoslovakia -NYT, 12-8-90, pg.35; ABB Atom together
with Ansaldo & Fiat under the name Consorzio
Plus aims to develop a central electric power generating plant
for possible use in Italy, even though 2 years ago in a national
referendum people voted against nuclear power plants-WSJ,
12-18-90, pg.C-13; bought Blounts Swiss subsidiary
and owner of mass-burn technology that Blount used in its
waste-to-energy plants: W+E Umwelttechnik AG. Montenay
bought the U.S. licence while ABB bought the worldwide
(non U.S.) licence, while Ogden Martin bought up Blounts
operating incinerators; its ABB Canada unit signed
a $30 million to supply autotransformers to Hydro-Quebec, the
Canadian electricity utility-7-4-91, NYT, pg.D-3. See also:
Harvard Business Review, March-April, 1991, and Business
Week, 7-23-91, pgs. 64-66.
and waste management...The energy content of the U.S. waste
represents almost 5% of the countrys total energy consumption,
including gasoline for cars. With that much energy in the
waste and
the scarcity of landfill sites, the choice is going to be incineration.
And
we supply entire plants for incineration. We also operate
waste to energy plants and are specialists in air pollution.
Flakt [owned by ABB] is the
worlds biggest environmental control company. There
is no other
with the same scope and the same volume. So looking at the
1990s as an environmental decade, we are in
a very interesting position.
Proposal: a 1,000 ton per day ABB municipal waste incinerator
WASTE NOT # 181 A publication of Work on Waste USA,
published 48 times a year. Annual rates are: Groups & Non-Profits
$50; Students & Seniors $35; Individual
$40; Consultants & For-Profits $125; Canadian
$US45; Overseas $65. Editors: Ellen & Paul
Connett, 82 Judson Street, Canton, NY 13617. Tel: 315-379-9200.
Fax: 315-379-0448.