They burn garbage for power in my country and it would work really well except for the fact that people put things in the regular rubbish that should in no way be burned. The city recycles all things that should not be burned but lazy folks keep putting toxic and poisonous things into their regular garbage, it gets burned, and then the air pollution released is worse than the benefit gained from burning the trash. Sad but true......Belgium
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Electricity from Garbage
Started by zararina, Sep 27 2011 06:32 AM
38 replies to this topic
#22
Posted 14 October 2011 - 07:48 AM
marale60, on 14 October 2011 - 02:44 AM, said:
They burn garbage for power in my country and it would work really well except for the fact that people put things in the regular rubbish that should in no way be burned. The city recycles all things that should not be burned but lazy folks keep putting toxic and poisonous things into their regular garbage, it gets burned, and then the air pollution released is worse than the benefit gained from burning the trash. Sad but true......Belgium
#23
Posted 17 October 2011 - 10:29 AM
marale60, on 14 October 2011 - 02:44 AM, said:
They burn garbage for power in my country and it would work really well except for the fact that people put things in the regular rubbish that should in no way be burned. The city recycles all things that should not be burned but lazy folks keep putting toxic and poisonous things into their regular garbage, it gets burned, and then the air pollution released is worse than the benefit gained from burning the trash. Sad but true......Belgium
Burning garbage for energy is really a poor idea. There are two serious problems with the concept itself.
First, the only things in garbage that hold energy are wood/paper and plastics. Given the value of paper products, it makes far more sense to recycle the wood and turn it into some level of paper. Paper can be downcycled a few times to increasingly poorer quality paper before burning it. Plastics are much better recycled and reused than burned given the energy that went into making the plastic in the first place. The only things that prevent plastic recycling are poor choice of plastics, (ie #3 and #7 which are bad to burn anyway) and poor government policies that don't ensure proper recycling is promoted.
The second problem is that all the organic wastes in garbage contain lots of water. This water has to be evaporated off before the underlying organic matter can be burned. This takes enormous amounts of energy taking away from what the process can generate in the first place. As a result, it is a far better idea to compost the organic material, getting clean soil as a result.
#24
Posted 23 October 2011 - 06:53 PM
Wonderful! Not only are we going to rely on hydro, solar, and nuclear power. Now there�s also the garbage-methane power, a good deduction to the use of our natural resources. If the government should pursue another project, they must add to their list for the sanitary landfills to be structured as new electricity source. However, since not all types of garbage can produce this methane, there should be a strict law for garbage segregation if the masses can�t push themselves to practice proper waste disposal. Better have the government be aware of this at once. So far, I could only see the benefit. Anyone knows if this idea will turn sour? 
#27
Posted 28 October 2011 - 05:35 AM
Green Thumb, on 23 October 2011 - 06:53 PM, said:
Wonderful! Not only are we going to rely on hydro, solar, and nuclear power. Now there�s also the garbage-methane power, a good deduction to the use of our natural resources. If the government should pursue another project, they must add to their list for the sanitary landfills to be structured as new electricity source. However, since not all types of garbage can produce this methane, there should be a strict law for garbage segregation if the masses can�t push themselves to practice proper waste disposal. Better have the government be aware of this at once. So far, I could only see the benefit. Anyone knows if this idea will turn sour?
Only organic waste can produce methane and it is far more effective to compost organic waste than to bury it in the ground and wait for it to turn to methane. As a result, extraction of methane only makes sense in existing landfills. While it is true than many places do not yet compost organic waste, composting is the best thing to do to avoid production of the green house gas methane in the first place rather than putting in the infrastructure to slowly the collect the methane as it bubbles out of the landfill area.
#31
Posted 25 November 2011 - 01:38 PM
sunny, on 26 October 2011 - 01:38 AM, said:
The idea is excellent - only to find the most cost-effective solution that will comply with environmental standards !
Definitely a brilliant idea, hopefully more people will follow this example.
#32
Posted 27 November 2011 - 05:34 AM
Plasma is also being incorporated more and more. (But not as quickly here as in Europe.)
"A waste-to-energy facility that will turn 400 metric tons of garbage per day into 21 megawatts of net electricity--
enough to power about 19,000 homes. Rather than burning trash to generate heat, as with an incinerator, the facility proposed by Ottawa-based PlascoEnergy Group employs electric-plasma torches to gasify the municipal waste and enlist the gas to generate electricity.
A few waste-to-energy gasification plants have been built in Europe and Asia, where landfilling is more difficult and energy has historically been more costly. But PlascoEnergy's plant would be the first large facility of its kind in North America."
http://www.technolog...m/Energy/21029/
http://inhabitat.com...enerate-energy/
"According to EPA and Eurostat figures, Denmark recycles 42% of its waste and burns 54% in heat and power stations.
The US, by comparison, recycles 33% while only 13% is used in waste-to-energy incinerators.
The majority of US trash – 54% – ends up in landfills, compared to only 4% in Denmark.
Europe currently treats 50 million ton of wastes at waste-to-energy plants each year, generating an amount of energy that
can supply electricity for 27 million people or heat for 13 million people."
http://www.thinkglob...en.org/wte.html
"A waste-to-energy facility that will turn 400 metric tons of garbage per day into 21 megawatts of net electricity--
enough to power about 19,000 homes. Rather than burning trash to generate heat, as with an incinerator, the facility proposed by Ottawa-based PlascoEnergy Group employs electric-plasma torches to gasify the municipal waste and enlist the gas to generate electricity.
A few waste-to-energy gasification plants have been built in Europe and Asia, where landfilling is more difficult and energy has historically been more costly. But PlascoEnergy's plant would be the first large facility of its kind in North America."
http://www.technolog...m/Energy/21029/
http://inhabitat.com...enerate-energy/
"According to EPA and Eurostat figures, Denmark recycles 42% of its waste and burns 54% in heat and power stations.
The US, by comparison, recycles 33% while only 13% is used in waste-to-energy incinerators.
The majority of US trash – 54% – ends up in landfills, compared to only 4% in Denmark.
Europe currently treats 50 million ton of wastes at waste-to-energy plants each year, generating an amount of energy that
can supply electricity for 27 million people or heat for 13 million people."
http://www.thinkglob...en.org/wte.html
#33
Posted 27 November 2011 - 08:43 PM
Plasmification is largely a scam because the most desirable fuel for it is actually the plastic so it is little different than efficiently burning fossil fuels in many ways. The problem is that getting all the water out of the various garbage materials takes considerable energy on its own meaning that for any efficiency, these plants need to get lots of "waste" plastic. If the organics and plastics are separated in advance, then the plastics are already in a state to be recycled instead. This is not something that the makers of the technology want you to be aware of.
#34
Posted 28 November 2011 - 04:43 AM
jasserEnv, on 27 November 2011 - 08:43 PM, said:
Plasmification is largely a scam because the most desirable fuel for it is actually the plastic so it is little different than efficiently burning fossil fuels in many ways. The problem is that getting all the water out of the various garbage materials takes considerable energy on its own meaning that for any efficiency, these plants need to get lots of "waste" plastic. If the organics and plastics are separated in advance, then the plastics are already in a state to be recycled instead. This is not something that the makers of the technology want you to be aware of.
#35
Posted 28 November 2011 - 10:45 AM
Yes actually, I have links.
The topic is being hotly contested by groups trying to promote diversion instead of incineration. So far attempts to get more details from Plasco have been limited to say the least. The fact that Plasco is charging a tipping fee of $60 per tonne is a clue as to the lack of energy generating success. In other words, their success is only in being paid for the processing of the garbage.
http://www.technolog...gy/21029/page2/
From Plasco's own literature, their efficiency is only 30%.
http://www.swananys.org/pdf/Plasco.pdf
Similar research has found that in the best cases, these plants generated about 600kWh/tonne of garbage. At $0.04 to $0.06 per kilowatt hour, each tonne of garbage is worth $24 to $36. In other words, they get more for processing the garbage via tipping fee than they do in generated electricity.
http://www.seas.colu...arme_thesis.pdf
As for the specific types of fuel that they would prefer, that is not something that is documented because it is not a direct scientific assessment. However, if you look at what goes into municipal solid waste and realize that water takes a lot of energy to vaporize, you'll understand that taking the wet organics is not preferable because converting 1 tonne of waste with 30% moisture levels will take about 200 kWh/tonne* in equivalent heat energy which is a considerable portion of the energy being generated.
*(from 2.5 MJ/kg to evaporate water, 1000kg/tonne, 2.777E-10 kwh/J)
The topic is being hotly contested by groups trying to promote diversion instead of incineration. So far attempts to get more details from Plasco have been limited to say the least. The fact that Plasco is charging a tipping fee of $60 per tonne is a clue as to the lack of energy generating success. In other words, their success is only in being paid for the processing of the garbage.
http://www.technolog...gy/21029/page2/
From Plasco's own literature, their efficiency is only 30%.
http://www.swananys.org/pdf/Plasco.pdf
Similar research has found that in the best cases, these plants generated about 600kWh/tonne of garbage. At $0.04 to $0.06 per kilowatt hour, each tonne of garbage is worth $24 to $36. In other words, they get more for processing the garbage via tipping fee than they do in generated electricity.
http://www.seas.colu...arme_thesis.pdf
As for the specific types of fuel that they would prefer, that is not something that is documented because it is not a direct scientific assessment. However, if you look at what goes into municipal solid waste and realize that water takes a lot of energy to vaporize, you'll understand that taking the wet organics is not preferable because converting 1 tonne of waste with 30% moisture levels will take about 200 kWh/tonne* in equivalent heat energy which is a considerable portion of the energy being generated.
*(from 2.5 MJ/kg to evaporate water, 1000kg/tonne, 2.777E-10 kwh/J)
#36
Posted 28 November 2011 - 03:14 PM
jasserEnv, on 28 November 2011 - 10:45 AM, said:
Thanks!
But, that report said that they convert the steam into electric.
#37
Posted 29 November 2011 - 07:56 AM
When you vaporize waste, you are going to get steam because most garbage is 30% moisture unless additional energy is used to extract the water in advance. The ideal generated fuel out of these plants is dry syngas and for that you have to get the moisture out of the generated fuel as well. The whole plasma gasification process involves extracting a lot of water out of the waste material during the process and given that you have so much steam generated, you are going to want to use it to contribute to the energy that you can extract. It is not as if operators are running a steam generator explicitly. The steam is simply the side effect of processing wet fuel ie the waste supply.
#39
Posted 30 November 2011 - 08:02 PM
zspuckl, on 28 October 2011 - 09:37 PM, said:
I think this is interesting, but one of my big questions is what kind of carbon footprint is being left in the process of producing the ability to convert the gas to electricity!
I would guess a big carbon footprint, but not as big as the daily car emissions. I would also guess it depends on what type of garbage, what type of materials they burn. I'd assume they have certain banned materials they can't process.
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