Two big projects, together costing about $500 million and providing about 200 direct jobs, are on the Buller District Council's radar.
Business development facilitator John Hill said the council had signed a heads of agreement with a New Zealand-based company which was offering a modern, clean technology process to convert rubbish to energy, heat and value-added products.
Talks were progressing faster than they had been with global giant Veolia, which operates similar plants.
Mr Hill, a qualified industrial chemist, said solid waste would be imported to Westport from around New Zealand and burned at high temperatures, converting back to its original ingredients.
"You just take the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen out in the form of gases and turn it into electricity."
The gases could also be used in the manufacture of products such as fertiliser, he said.
A waste to energy plant would support local freight infrastructure - rail, coastal shipping and road - and the council would no longer have to freight Buller's waste to a Nelson landfill.
Mr Hill said the New Zealand company was looking at industrial sites in Buller. Holcim's Westport packing plant site could be an option, because it was beside a railway line.
Asked why the company was considering Buller, given the freight distance from elsewhere, he said it would be easier to obtain resource consents for a plant here.
"Two advantages of Buller: we've burned coal for years, we have consents in place already at Holcim for burning coal, and secondly we're not Nimby people - we tend not to object to activities."
Regardless, any plant would have to meet national environmental standards.
"It's going to be a real clean-tech plant with no concerns anywhere about pollution or that sort of thing."
Mr Hill said the process hadn't been used in New Zealand before, but was common in the northern hemisphere.
He expected a plant could create about 80 jobs directly, plus indirect jobs, and would cost about $250 million. Construction would employ over 100 people.
The project was in the early stages, with much detail to be discussed and formalised. The company was partway through a feasibility study/business case.
Mr Hill said the council planned to update local business operators and the community over coming weeks and name the company.
The council also continued to progress a plan for NXT Fuel to design and build a timber-to-diesel refinery in Buller.
Mr Hill anticipated initial feedstock for the refinery would be timber waste imported into Buller. Longer-term, the feedstock would be grown on the West Coast.
"The main purpose of the timber to diesel plant would be to long-term, return sustainable forestry to the West Coast. To do that, of course, would require substantial amounts of planting."
He anticipated the refinery would cost about $250 million to build and provide about 120 direct jobs.
Mr Hill said he had been working on the waste to energy and timber to diesel projects for about three years and had confidence in both of them.
"The main reason for my confidence is the fact it actually has a benefit to the country nationally. I think whatever we do here in Buller would probably be copied elsewhere in the regions."
Mr Hill has also proposed to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment setting up a research institute in Buller.
"A Centre of Applied Research would result in an influx of high-calibre researchers on a permanent basis as well as temporary students on a project-by-project basis," he said.
A centre would allow Buller and the wider West Coast to research new technologies and industries, to assist the move from traditional extractive to high tech/clean tech industries. It would involve Canterbury University and probably universities and Crown research institutes nationwide.
It could begin as a low-cost start-up, possibly using the Epic Westport for hot desking and companies like SGS for laboratory research.
He had no idea how many people an institute would employ.
"It would be a case of bringing in expertise on a project-by-project basis."
- By Lee Scanlon of the Westport News
