Check out Panamanian Waste-To-Energy Project
Of all the clean energy investment opportunities I’ve come across in the last year, I have to put this in my top two or three. It’s a project that will generate electricity from a municipal solid waste site (one plant initially, with two more to follow soon) in Panama. To those who follow this blog closely, this may not sound like something new, since it’s certainly not the first WTE project that has gotten me excited. But check this out:
According to Accenture and PricewaterhouseCoopers, both of which have crunched the numbers, each plant will operate at approximately 50% profit margins, and produce EBITDA of $26 million annually. Best of all, the key–and most challenging– elements to build the facility are already in place; at this point the group needs a small bridge loan to push it across the goal line, in exchange for which they’re offering a huge, extremely generous chunk of equity.
There are many things to like about the project, detailed here. In short, it embraces proven technology, enjoys universal political support at all levels of governments, and projects (again, via work done by two of the world’s largest and most respected accounting firms) an enormously profitable stream of cash.
I’m as bullish on the financial success of this project as I’ve ever been on anything. But on top of that, I would add a note for those of you who are interested in “doing well by doing good,” i.e., who come at this from a philanthropic (as well as financial) perspective. The project will bring power to rural areas of the developing world for the first time. This means a far better quality of life for the people who live there, in terms of health and prosperity, but most importantly, in terms of education. Improving education has numerous benefits on its own—one of the most crucial of which is its favorable effect on population growth. Here’s an excerpt from the United Nations Population Fund’s website.
Education is important for everyone, but it is especially significant for girls and women. This is true not only because education is an entry point to other opportunities, but also because the educational achievements of women can have ripple effects within the family and across generations. Investing in girls’ education is one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty. Investments in secondary school education for girls yields especially high dividends.
Girls who have been educated are likely to marry later and to have smaller and healthier families. Educated women can recognize the importance of health care and know how to seek it for themselves and their children. Education helps girls and women to know their rights and to gain confidence to claim them. However, women’s literacy rates are significantly lower than men’s in most developing countries.
You’ll travel a long way to find a project that has a better trajectory for terrific financial returns, coupled with a profound humanitarian mission. If you’re an accredited investor, and you’re interested in speaking with the principles, please let me know and I’ll make it happen.
I much like that it’s a zero-emissions technology. An important note that jumped out at me from your “detailed here” link is this: “When the political will exists, the rest is a formality.”
The president of Panama and his dominant political party, Democratic Change, are populists and basically social democratic – rather than either revolutionary leftist like their significant opposition, the Democratic Revolutionary party, or fascist like the tiny right-wing “Fatherland Moral Vanguard” party.
The Democratic Change party has a populist platform includes the support for strong social well-being (including monetary support programs for people older than 70 years and for schoolchildren), mixed with some capitalist policies.
Democratic Change definitely does not appear to be a party entirely captured by bribery. We need to create something like that here in America. Certainly it’s well proven that greed won’t get us where we need to go.
Happy to show how we are working on just what you describe.
I’d be interested.
I am interested in the Gasification technology as I am involved in a significant WTE project in the UK where Gasification is being used, but is definitely not Zero emissions.
I have Google’d ACTI but only found a camera company. Any more information on this company and their technology?
As soon as a decision is finalized in this space and I’m at liberty to say more, I’ll let you know.
Are group here in the US (community power network) (wasergy machines) have a tnership in the UK to help develop sustainable projects /programs
In these days of rapidly increasing dangers from climate change I am surprised that you are promoting a project which appears to be incineration or other indirect combustion of waste. This is a method of increasing carbon emissions and is far from clean. A much cheaper, lower emissions and higher employment option is to sort waste- using modern hi tech sorters, clean the recyclables and digest organics via AD plant. This produces around 1/10th of the emissions of incineration at half the capital cost and provides cheap materials for local remanufacture, giving a much larger boost to the local economy, rather than just funds back to external large investors.
The project employs gasification rather than combustion, and is far cleaner than generating electricity from any fossil sources. Moreover, the benefits of bringing power to rural areas are huge.
I believe it’s claimed that this process is zero-emissions/carbon neutral.
Passed the article out to several others … you’re providing extremely valuable information. Don’t stop!