Fluor to Construct Trash-to-Energy East Coast Plant

Fluor Corp. said it is planning to build and operate a $25-million power facility in Massachusetts to convert trash into energy, marking the engineering giant’s first venture in what it hopes will be a series of mass-burn plants across the country.

The Irvine-based company recently set up a separate unit--called Fluor Resource Recovery of Massachusetts Limited Partnership--expressly to own and operate the Agawam, Mass., facility, scheduled for completion in March, 1988.

And Fluor is actively pursuing other waste-to-energy projects, according to Rick Maslin, company spokesman. He would not say where or how many.

“We’re going wherever there’s a market for engineering services and this (trash-to-power niche) is certainly one of them,” Maslin said.

The facility will be designed and built by Fluor Engineering Inc.’s Houston Engineering Center. After completion, Fluor Engineering will take in an estimated $2.1 million a year to operate and maintain the plant--although at least some of that work already has been subcontracted to a Vicon Recovery Systems Inc. of Butler, N.J. Construction is slated to begin next month, Maslin said.

The plant is designed to burn up to 360 tons a day of refuse collected from several western Massachusetts communities. The steam and power will be supplied to a nearby waste-water treatment plant and an electric utility, the spokesman said.

The plant will consist of three 120-ton-per-day incinerators, two 42,000-pound-per-hour waste heat boilers and one 8.6-megawatt generator.

Although estimates from Fluor were not immediately available, Southern California Edison Co. spokesman Ken Bellis said the plant’s 8.6-megawatt generator would be able to supply approximately 4,300 homes with electricity.