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Private presenter pitches modular waste-to-energy system to process lake muck and local waste
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Summary
A company representative proposed modular rotary-kiln facilities to thermally treat municipal waste, sludge and dredged lake muck, producing power and vitrified ash; trustees requested follow-up on permitting, financing and site-specific feasibility.
Nat Mundy, representing Freedom Energy Tech, presented a modular waste-to-energy and rotary-kiln vitrification concept the company says can convert mixed waste and dredged muck into heat, electricity and inert vitrified ash. Mundy described a system that requires a small footprint (roughly 3–4 acres per facility), can be fuel‑flexible (yard/wood waste, sludge, mixed combustible waste), and that the company models at a capital cost of roughly $35–50 million per fixed facility with a three-year return on investment in modeled scenarios.
Mundy suggested colocating modular units near high-need sites around Lake Apopka and the Harris Chain to avoid long-haul trucking of dredged material to distant landfills and to use produced energy to dry sludge and support wastewater treatment. He referenced control systems and rotary-kiln vendors (including Metso) and described vitrification as producing an inert mineralized ash suitable for some construction uses. "This is not incineration," Mundy said; he emphasized process control and existing industrial precedent for rotary kilns while acknowledging permitting, flow-control and bonding constraints in Florida.
Trustee questions focused on real-world precedents and permitting risk. Mundy said the company has facilities in other sectors (example facility cited in Kentucky) and that the model would rely on private financing and contractual tipping-fee revenue; he acknowledged limited direct precedent for large-scale lake-muck remediation using this exact stack of technologies in Florida. Trustees asked about noise, emissions, water discharge, siting near residential neighborhoods, and the radius for hauling dredged material; Mundy said the systems are enclosed, claim a small required footprint and are designed to control air emissions internally through quench/condensation steps.
Why it matters: trustees viewed the proposal as a potentially different engineering and financing model for dealing with dredged muck and sludge—an alternative to pumping material across the county—and asked staff to evaluate feasibility, permitting risk, potential partners (wastewater plants, water management districts), and local opposition risk (NIMBY). No action or procurement was taken; the board agreed to pursue further inquiry and potential stakeholder outreach.
Next step: trustees requested staff to gather permitting and site-specific feasibility details and to loop in partner agencies such as the water management district and county solid-waste staff for a future report.
