Botched Incinerator Losing Steam
Shamefully, the waste-to-energy plant at Harrisburg, PA was supposed to undergo a renovation which would increase its incineration capacity from about 200 tons per day to 800 tons per day, and its electricity output from 8 megawatts to 24 megawatts. The upgrade, which was undertaken by Barlow Projects, was botched and stopped in 2006. One of the three ovens is completely incapable of operating, and the other two are not 100% stable. The concerns being thrown around are how much money it will cost the city to get the facility up to speed.
This is a serious blemish on the future of waste-to-energy in Central Pennsylvania. There will be little incentive to build a waste-to-energy facility based upon what happened in Harrisburg. Even a brand new facility with the latest technology from the start would be hard to get through. Some people here do not even pay to have their waste collected at curbside for disposal in the landfill let alone having it incinerated in a tightly-controlled energy-from-waste facility. Instead, trash is smoldered, converted into micron-size airborne particles at pizza-oven temperatures in rusty 55-gallon oil drums scattered around backyards throughout the region, and I don't think the smoking ban applies to this kind of smoking.
The two working burners at Harrisburg are currently being operated by Covanta.
In many European countries such as Denmark, municipal governments handle all aspects of waste management and that includes the construction and operation of incineration plants. The system seems to work very well and offer an environmentally-sound and inexpensive option for the treatment of non-recyclable solid waste and production of energy. Denmark's biggest incineration plant, Vestforbraending, combusts 700,000 Mg of waste per year and heats the national capital (Copenhagen). However, Americans must not be ready for it yet.
Of course, the mainstream news media seems to be more interested in giving us the scoop on President Bush's colonoscopy (and for the 3 days afterwards) and the latest Paris Hilton trash than what is going on at the incinerator. So maybe no will ever know about this!
Plasma Gasification of waste to begin in Ottawa
Plasco Energy Group will be starting a test facility for plasma-arc gasification of municipal solid waste at the Trail Road landfill near Ottawa, Canada.
Canadian cities such as Ottawa and Toronto have been looking at waste-to-energy technology in order to deal with the waste that is currently either landfilled in Canada or shipped to the United States.
Traditional waste-to-energy facilities use incineration, where waste is aerobically combusted at about 1000-1500°C. Plasma facilities use an electrical "plasma torch" to ionize a gas - creating temperatures in the range of 10,000°C. The plasma heats the waste up in an anaerobic environment - therefore it does not burn. It is chemically decomposed into elements and simple compounds such as carbon monoxide and silicon dioxide. The resulting gases are also rich in carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane meaning that they are rich in energy. This gas along with the waste heat from the gasification process goes towards the plant's energy output.
The plasma process offers advantages such as the fact that it is so hot that less dioxin-like compounds aree produced, and the lack of excess air reduced nitrogen oxide production. The high temperatures can increase the volatization of heavy metals, though. The "ash" is not the fine powder form that we are all familiar with - it is a black glass-like substance made up mostly of silica, alumina, and other metal oxides.
Anaerobic Digestion gaining popularity in U.S.
A set of anerobic digestion facilities are proposed for North Carolina. The facilities will digest hog manure and food/biomass waste while using the resulting methane to generate electricity, most likely using reciprocating engines.
Widespread large-scale digestion for animal and biomass wastes is a fairly new concept in the United States, though it has been practiced in many areas of Europe for quite some time due to less access to cheap fossil fuels and stricter regulations on the disposal of wastes.
WTE Coming Back, slowly but surely
With higher energy prices, landfill tipping fees, and concern about carbon dioxide emissions, more municipalities across the U.S. seem to be willing to light a fire under their refuse and reap the benefits.
Municipalities are beginning to see WTE as more of a power plant for the production of energy and less of an incinerator for the reduction of waste, and this has political implications (reducing the need for liquefied natural gas and oil imports) and environmental ones as well (reducing greenhouse gas emissions by burning the biomass portion of waste for energy).
WTE facilities placed in or near urban centers eliminates long-haul trucking of waste to landfills, where greenhouse gases would be emitted by both the trucks and the decomposing waste in the landfill. When supplmented with sensible recycling programs, modern waste-to-energy provides safe and environmentaly sound waste management. Now if only we stopped producing so much garbage! Try telling that to the party animals who live in apartment above me...
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