GIBSON CITY – Mayor Dan Dickey said after meeting with a developer this week that he was "very optimistic" and was "looking forward to hearing more" about the firm's interest in bringing a second plasma-gasification waste-recycling plant to Gibson City.

Officials with Milwaukee-based Alliance Federated Energy, a developer of renewable-energy projects with a specific focus on plasma-gasification technology, met with the mayor and members of the city council for two hours Tuesday, outlining their interest in developing a facility that would convert into renewable energy an estimated 1,000 tons of waste per day.

AFE officials said the plant would create 45 to 50 permanent full-time operations and maintenance jobs – with an average salary estimated at $30,000 to $40,000 – and 250 temporary construction jobs during the plant's two-year construction.

Christopher Maloney, the firm's chief executive officer, said he was "encouraged" by the discussion with citizens and officials and expects to make a determination on whether Gibson City wins the bid for the plant "within 60 days."

Maloney said Gibson City is not the only site being considered for the plant, which could become the first large-scale commercial plasma-gasification facility built in the U.S.

He declined to specify how many other options there are, or where.

But he said Gibson City is among the candidates because "there is a genuine interest, obviously, here by the community."

"It starts with local community support," he said. "The last thing we'd want to do, even if the economics look good, is to go try to force this down the community's throat."

AFE is the second company to express interest in locating a plasma-gasification plant in Gibson City since November 2009, when Massachusetts-based Eco Manufacturing announced its interest.

Maloney stressed that AFE is not competing with Eco and that he does not foresee any problems with having two similar facilities in one town.

Maloney noted that although the "technology used is the same," the two proposed plants would use "different waste streams" – with Eco processing about 200 tons per day of hazardous industrial waste, and AFE recycling about 250 tons per day of nonhazardous industrial waste and 750 tons per day of municipal solid waste.

"This project is independent of what that other developer was proposing," Maloney said. "I don't look at it as supplanting the other developer."

Garrett Gates, vice president of business development for Eco, said Wednesday his company is "planning on moving forward and are in the process of negotiating a host agreement with the county."

Gates said an agreement may be close. If so, "we'll do a real estate assessment and once those two things are done, we'll resubmit the (site) application."

Maloney said AFE officials have not determined a site for their proposed plant, as they explore "a number of options" – all on farmland.

AFE would also need to file a siting application, among numerous other permits required to operate the plant, said Ken Niemann, executive vice president of project development and operations for AFE.

"The permitting for this takes at least a year," Niemann said.

After a project is permitted, it usually takes "18 to 24 months" to complete construction, meaning there is a "three-year process from start to finish," he said.

AFE would develop but not operate the plant, Maloney said. Rather, the 6-year-old company – as it has done in the past and plans to do with the nine projects it is currently developing – would partner with another company that would operate the facility, Maloney said.

"We're a developer; we're not an operator," he noted. "That's not our skill set."

Among possible partners for operating the plant, Maloney said, is Air Products & Chemicals Inc., a $9 billion corporation that has operations in 40 countries. It has corporate offices in Allentown, Pa.

Maloney stressed that residents would have opportunities to communicate with whoever would operate the plant before it is built.