San Diego County faces a disposal capacity cliff with no conventional replacement on any planning horizon — and the only instrument that resolves it, locks disposal costs, and generates a compounding Circular Royalty™ stream requires a single decision: Execute the LOI/MOU.
The action instrument. This brief distills the Waste Study, Proposal, and EIR into a single decision frame. It names the three configuration options, quantifies the fiscal timeline, states what delay costs, and presents one call to action: Execute the LOI/MOU. No new numbers are introduced here.
San Diego County generates approximately 8,767 tons per day of manufacturing feedstock — a figure that accounts for every material stream currently classified as waste, from residential collection to commercial loads to construction and demolition material. Every ton of this stream that cannot be diverted flows to one of four county landfills, of which only one — West Miramar Sanitary Landfill, operated by the City of San Diego’s Environmental Services Department — remains under municipal control. That facility closes around 2031.
At Miramar’s closure, Republic Services controls all three remaining active county landfills: Sycamore (East County), Otay (South County), and Borrego (desert). With no municipal counterbalance, gate pricing becomes unilateral. The Fully Weighted Disposal Cost — already estimated at $125/ton and rising at approximately 3% per year — has no structural floor post-2031 under State A conditions.
Gregory Canyon Landfill, the county’s only proposed replacement capacity, was permanently canceled in 2016 when the Pala Band of Mission Indians acquired the site. No successor siting process exists. No waste-to-energy or resource recovery facility of any kind operates anywhere in San Diego County. The disposal pathway is narrowing with no conventional alternative in development.
Carbotura offers a single commercial structure: the Circular Supply Agreement (CSA) — Beneficiation Fee (TMC Fee) plus Circular Royalty™. The only decision at LOI/MOU is which deployment configuration — the capacity tier. The Exogenesis™ Royalty is a CSA add-on, subject to Waste Characterization Study.
The configuration governs capacity only. Every configuration operates under the same CSA commercial structure.
All financial figures ILLUSTRATIVE · BF $100/ton VERIFIED · Royalty at Year 1 = 120% × BFₙ (Release 28 canonical formula; multiplier on current-year BF) · Config figures shown under the CSA · CSA minimum 30-year term; perpetual absent Non-Renewal Notice. is a differential between two independently reported gross transactions — the Beneficiation Fee and the Circular Royalty™ — and is not a netted position.
The configuration decision (A/B/C) is made at LOI/MOU execution and does not foreclose scale-up. The CSA includes phased expansion provisions enabling the county to transition between configurations via Joint Working Group amendment. The choice is which deployment scale to begin with — not a ceiling on future scope.
“Gross cost displacement and Circular Royalty™ cash flow are quantified separately. Both are independent financial effects of the CSA.”
“At steady state, the Circular Royalty™ is designed to exceed the Beneficiation Fee on a per-ton basis.”
“Circular Royalty™ payments begin 13 months after corresponding Beneficiation Fee payments and ramp to full run-rate on a rolling basis.”
| Metric | Value | Config | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Addressable feedstock | 2,000 TPD / 730,000 TPY | Config C | ESTIMATED |
| Beneficiation Fee — Year 1 | $100.00/ton ($73.00M/yr) | Config C | VERIFIED |
| BF escalation | 2.5%/yr compounding | All | LOCKED |
| State A FWDC (planning basis) | $125/ton ($91.25M/yr avoided) | Config C | ESTIMATED |
| Circular Royalty™ — Year 1 rate | $120.00/ton ($87.60M/yr) | Config C | LOCKED |
| (differential between two independently reported gross transactions; not a netted position) | +$13.66M/yr | Config C | ILLUSTRATIVE |
| 30-yr cumulative Circular Royalty™ | ~$1,088M | Config C | ILLUSTRATIVE |
| Phase Initial COD | T0 + 24 months | All | PROVISIONAL |
| First Circular Royalty™ payment | T0 + 37 months | All | PROVISIONAL |
| Miramar closure — capacity cliff | ~2031 (~60 months from Q3 2026) | VERIFIED | |
| Direct manufacturing employment | ~125 / ~250 / ~500 FTE | A / B / C | ESTIMATED |
| Carbon avoidance (Config C) | ~1,140,000 tCO₂e/yr | Config C | ESTIMATED |
| CSA minimum term | 30 years from Phase Initial COD; perpetual absent Non-Renewal Notice | All | LOCKED |
| Non-Renewal Notice window | Year 28 from COD; earliest exit Year 30 | All | LOCKED |
ILLUSTRATIVE figures: computed under Release 28 canonical formula (multiplier on BFₙ, current-year escalated Beneficiation Fee). Figures are not contractual projections; Term Sheet execution required.
Miramar Landfill’s closure is the single most consequential irreversibility event in San Diego County’s waste management timeline. It is verified, it has a defined date, and it is not reversible. At closure, every ton of residual waste that currently flows to a municipally-operated facility transfers to Republic Services’ sole-operator private market.
Under a standard deployment schedule, LOI/MOU execution in Q3 2026 places Phase Initial Commercial Operations Date (T0 + 24 months) at approximately Q3 2028 — approximately 33 months ahead of Miramar’s ~2031 closure. That buffer provides time to establish ACM operations, onboard hauler routes, and build operational confidence before the closure event.
A 12-month delay to LOI/MOU execution reduces that buffer to 21 months. A 24-month delay eliminates it entirely — Phase Initial COD would coincide with the closure event rather than preceding it. Beyond 24 months of delay, the county is reacting to the closure rather than preparing for it.
Delay does not preserve optionality. The CSA Non-Renewal Notice window opens at Year 28 from COD regardless of when LOI/MOU execution occurs. A later start date does not create additional flexibility — it consumes the earliest available exit window without any benefit. The risk asymmetry is one-directional: executing the LOI/MOU preserves options; delaying it forecloses the pre-closure buffer without creating any new ones.
LOI/MOU execution initiates the Term Sheet phase, during which every PROVISIONAL and ESTIMATED registry value is confirmed through direct data access and site investigation. The Term Sheet produces the final economic and legal terms that become CSA appendices. CSA execution (= T0) starts the deployment clock. Phase Initial COD: T0 + 24 months.