Over the last several years, European countries have been phasing out landfilling. Similar inititavies are going on in Asia, too. Nickolas J. Themelis, Director of the Earth Engineering Center and chair of the Global Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council (WTERT) Council notes, “China offers a $30 credit per megawatt-hour of electricity generated by WTE plants. It practically doubled the value of electricity and the revenue the WTE plants get from electricity,” he says. “There has to be some kind of government policy to make WTE more competitive in the US.”
WTERT is studying the beneficial use of ash, Themelis adds. “In the US, the ash—bottom ash and fly ash—is mixed and used beneficially as daily cover in landfilling, where every day, according to EPA regulation, you have to put six inches of soil on top of the waste disposed during the day. The problem is: Where do you find that soil? People have gone to other things—like using ash, which is good as a daily cover. In Europe, they don’t have much landfilling, so they’re trying to use the bottom ash beneficially for construction.”
Over the last several years, European countries have been phasing out landfilling. Similar inititavies are going on in Asia, too. Nickolas J. Themelis, Director of the Earth Engineering Center and chair of the Global Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council (WTERT) Council notes, “China offers a $30 credit per megawatt-hour of electricity generated by WTE plants. It practically doubled the value of electricity and the revenue the WTE plants get from electricity,” he says. “There has to be some kind of government policy to make WTE more competitive in the US.”
WTERT is studying the beneficial use of ash, Themelis adds. “In the US, the ash—bottom ash and fly ash—is mixed and used beneficially as daily cover in landfilling, where every day, according to EPA regulation, you have to put six inches of soil on top of the waste disposed during the day. The problem is: Where do you find that soil? People have gone to other things—like using ash, which is good as a daily cover. In Europe, they don’t have much landfilling, so they’re trying to use the bottom ash beneficially for construction.”
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Bruce Labno, recently retired senior consultant for Golder Associates who continues to consult, cites three factors in a WTE project’s success. The first and second are tied into solid waste planning from the beginning: having the right materials and the transport of those materials. “You’ve got to get the right material, and you’ve got to get that right material to the right spot to be able to be processed,” he says.
The third factor is if a specific technology can perform as needed to create the desired end product. “Generally, it’s turned into a biofuel or biogas, or both,” says Labno. “If you can get into a commodity at the end, it has to be further processed and transported. The ‘game’ is in how many times do you have to touch the material to be able to get it to what you’re ultimately going to be selling to make money for the company.”
The low-hanging fruit is the organic fraction: food waste and fats, oils, and greases (FOG). “That requires a solid waste management system in place to be able to isolate those types of materials so something can be removed and moved to another location for processing,” he says.
For example, there can be 200+ different food waste technologies in Europe for AD. The technology needs to be appropriate to an MSW system—its size and cost of the desired process for the end product.
Experts See Challenges With Gasification in WTE Facilities
Labno’s not a “fan” of gasification. “I have not seen it work effectively yet, and that’s only because of my limited experience with it,” he says. “Gasification can be expensive; it can be energy-intensive in itself. The chemistry depends on temperature pressure, what system you’ve got, and what you want to do with that. Usually, there’s something more cost-effective to do with the material than to gasify it to get whatever you want, such as electricity.”
That leads to the end point of taking the end product to market, and how much fluctuation an operation can handle. “What is the capability of maintaining a good return on investment over a period of time?” he asks. “And by that, I mean selling the commodity.”
In his Midwest location, electricity is less expensive than elsewhere in the country. “There are other factors, such as higher densities of population and warmer climates where solid waste doesn’t run into cold things,” Labno adds. “You get into all of these extenuating circumstances that come to bear on whether or not a given process would work.”
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Working with clients, Labno learns their desires and if they’re willing to share some of the costs. “We can then share with them some of the liabilities and the hidden costs they might be missing.” In his experience, 1 in 50 clients have a project that “potentially has a 50-50 chance of maybe, kind of, sort of making it.”
Labno says that facilities colocating with other facilities with different feedstocks have a good chance at success. “The big dog in the business is Covanta, and they’ve done well. Each major city has had a facility that’s been up and down, and around and through. The city of Ames, Iowa, is still managing theirs, and they were the first ones in the US.”
WTERT studies show the cost to a community to develop and build a WTE facility depends on several factors, but generally averages $650 per annual ton. Since WTE plants have an overall availability of 330 24-hour days per year, on a daily basis the capital cost is about $200,000 per daily ton of capacity. A WTE plant processing typical MSW will generate a net of 500–600 kWh per ton for use by the local utility. At the price of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour, the revenues per ton of MSW would be $30–$36, according to WTERT. And, WTERT estimates that, in addition to capital charges, a 1,000-tpd plant would require 60 personnel, in addition to the costs of services, materials, supplies, and ash disposal. Many European Union plants cogenerate electricity (500 kWh/ton) and district heating (1,000 kWh/ton).
There are numerous economic benefits to WTE: the value of the electrical energy generated, the tipping fee paid by municipalities using the WTE facility, the value of the ferrous and non-ferrous scrap collected, the value of cogenerated heat used by adjacent industrial plants or for district heating, and the renewable energy carbon credits.
There are environmental benefits as well. Since WTE plants conserve fossil fuels by generating electricity, 1 ton of MSW combusted reduces oil use by 1 barrel (35 gallons) or 0.25 tons of high-heating value coal.
WTE facilities are primarily regulated under the federal Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. WTE plants do not have the aqueous emissions that may be experienced in landfills and reduce the space required for landfilling by about 90%, says WTERT. There are economies of scale to be considered in constructing a WTE plant, with larger plants resulting in lower costs per ton of processed MSW. In the US, most WTE facilities range 500–3,000 tpd.
Bruce Labno, recently retired senior consultant for Golder Associates who continues to consult, cites three factors in a WTE project’s success. The first and second are tied into solid waste planning from the beginning: having the right materials and the transport of those materials. “You’ve got to get the right material, and you’ve got to get that right material to the right spot to be able to be processed,” he says.
The third factor is if a specific technology can perform as needed to create the desired end product. “Generally, it’s turned into a biofuel or biogas, or both,” says Labno. “If you can get into a commodity at the end, it has to be further processed and transported. The ‘game’ is in how many times do you have to touch the material to be able to get it to what you’re ultimately going to be selling to make money for the company.”
The low-hanging fruit is the organic fraction: food waste and fats, oils, and greases (FOG). “That requires a solid waste management system in place to be able to isolate those types of materials so something can be removed and moved to another location for processing,” he says.
For example, there can be 200+ different food waste technologies in Europe for AD. The technology needs to be appropriate to an MSW system—its size and cost of the desired process for the end product.
Experts See Challenges With Gasification in WTE Facilities
Labno’s not a “fan” of gasification. “I have not seen it work effectively yet, and that’s only because of my limited experience with it,” he says. “Gasification can be expensive; it can be energy-intensive in itself. The chemistry depends on temperature pressure, what system you’ve got, and what you want to do with that. Usually, there’s something more cost-effective to do with the material than to gasify it to get whatever you want, such as electricity.”
That leads to the end point of taking the end product to market, and how much fluctuation an operation can handle. “What is the capability of maintaining a good return on investment over a period of time?” he asks. “And by that, I mean selling the commodity.”
In his Midwest location, electricity is less expensive than elsewhere in the country. “There are other factors, such as higher densities of population and warmer climates where solid waste doesn’t run into cold things,” Labno adds. “You get into all of these extenuating circumstances that come to bear on whether or not a given process would work.”
Over the last several years, European countries have been phasing out landfilling. Similar inititavies are going on in Asia, too. Nickolas J. Themelis, Director of the Earth Engineering Center and chair of the Global Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council (WTERT) Council notes, “China offers a $30 credit per megawatt-hour of electricity generated by WTE plants. It practically doubled the value of electricity and the revenue the WTE plants get from electricity,” he says. “There has to be some kind of government policy to make WTE more competitive in the US.”
WTERT is studying the beneficial use of ash, Themelis adds. “In the US, the ash—bottom ash and fly ash—is mixed and used beneficially as daily cover in landfilling, where every day, according to EPA regulation, you have to put six inches of soil on top of the waste disposed during the day. The problem is: Where do you find that soil? People have gone to other things—like using ash, which is good as a daily cover. In Europe, they don’t have much landfilling, so they’re trying to use the bottom ash beneficially for construction.”
[text_ad]
Bruce Labno, recently retired senior consultant for Golder Associates who continues to consult, cites three factors in a WTE project’s success. The first and second are tied into solid waste planning from the beginning: having the right materials and the transport of those materials. “You’ve got to get the right material, and you’ve got to get that right material to the right spot to be able to be processed,” he says.
The third factor is if a specific technology can perform as needed to create the desired end product. “Generally, it’s turned into a biofuel or biogas, or both,” says Labno. “If you can get into a commodity at the end, it has to be further processed and transported. The ‘game’ is in how many times do you have to touch the material to be able to get it to what you’re ultimately going to be selling to make money for the company.”
The low-hanging fruit is the organic fraction: food waste and fats, oils, and greases (FOG). “That requires a solid waste management system in place to be able to isolate those types of materials so something can be removed and moved to another location for processing,” he says.
For example, there can be 200+ different food waste technologies in Europe for AD. The technology needs to be appropriate to an MSW system—its size and cost of the desired process for the end product.
Experts See Challenges With Gasification in WTE Facilities
Labno’s not a “fan” of gasification. “I have not seen it work effectively yet, and that’s only because of my limited experience with it,” he says. “Gasification can be expensive; it can be energy-intensive in itself. The chemistry depends on temperature pressure, what system you’ve got, and what you want to do with that. Usually, there’s something more cost-effective to do with the material than to gasify it to get whatever you want, such as electricity.”
That leads to the end point of taking the end product to market, and how much fluctuation an operation can handle. “What is the capability of maintaining a good return on investment over a period of time?” he asks. “And by that, I mean selling the commodity.”
In his Midwest location, electricity is less expensive than elsewhere in the country. “There are other factors, such as higher densities of population and warmer climates where solid waste doesn’t run into cold things,” Labno adds. “You get into all of these extenuating circumstances that come to bear on whether or not a given process would work.”
[text_ad]
Working with clients, Labno learns their desires and if they’re willing to share some of the costs. “We can then share with them some of the liabilities and the hidden costs they might be missing.” In his experience, 1 in 50 clients have a project that “potentially has a 50-50 chance of maybe, kind of, sort of making it.”
Labno says that facilities colocating with other facilities with different feedstocks have a good chance at success. “The big dog in the business is Covanta, and they’ve done well. Each major city has had a facility that’s been up and down, and around and through. The city of Ames, Iowa, is still managing theirs, and they were the first ones in the US.”
WTERT studies show the cost to a community to develop and build a WTE facility depends on several factors, but generally averages $650 per annual ton. Since WTE plants have an overall availability of 330 24-hour days per year, on a daily basis the capital cost is about $200,000 per daily ton of capacity. A WTE plant processing typical MSW will generate a net of 500–600 kWh per ton for use by the local utility. At the price of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour, the revenues per ton of MSW would be $30–$36, according to WTERT. And, WTERT estimates that, in addition to capital charges, a 1,000-tpd plant would require 60 personnel, in addition to the costs of services, materials, supplies, and ash disposal. Many European Union plants cogenerate electricity (500 kWh/ton) and district heating (1,000 kWh/ton).
There are numerous economic benefits to WTE: the value of the electrical energy generated, the tipping fee paid by municipalities using the WTE facility, the value of the ferrous and non-ferrous scrap collected, the value of cogenerated heat used by adjacent industrial plants or for district heating, and the renewable energy carbon credits.
There are environmental benefits as well. Since WTE plants conserve fossil fuels by generating electricity, 1 ton of MSW combusted reduces oil use by 1 barrel (35 gallons) or 0.25 tons of high-heating value coal.
WTE facilities are primarily regulated under the federal Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. WTE plants do not have the aqueous emissions that may be experienced in landfills and reduce the space required for landfilling by about 90%, says WTERT. There are economies of scale to be considered in constructing a WTE plant, with larger plants resulting in lower costs per ton of processed MSW. In the US, most WTE facilities range 500–3,000 tpd.
Working with clients, Labno learns their desires and if they’re willing to share some of the costs. “We can then share with them some of the liabilities and the hidden costs they might be missing.” In his experience, 1 in 50 clients have a project that “potentially has a 50-50 chance of maybe, kind of, sort of making it.”
Labno says that facilities colocating with other facilities with different feedstocks have a good chance at success. “The big dog in the business is Covanta, and they’ve done well. Each major city has had a facility that’s been up and down, and around and through. The city of Ames, Iowa, is still managing theirs, and they were the first ones in the US.”
WTERT studies show the cost to a community to develop and build a WTE facility depends on several factors, but generally averages $650 per annual ton. Since WTE plants have an overall availability of 330 24-hour days per year, on a daily basis the capital cost is about $200,000 per daily ton of capacity. A WTE plant processing typical MSW will generate a net of 500–600 kWh per ton for use by the local utility. At the price of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour, the revenues per ton of MSW would be $30–$36, according to WTERT. And, WTERT estimates that, in addition to capital charges, a 1,000-tpd plant would require 60 personnel, in addition to the costs of services, materials, supplies, and ash disposal. Many European Union plants cogenerate electricity (500 kWh/ton) and district heating (1,000 kWh/ton).
There are numerous economic benefits to WTE: the value of the electrical energy generated, the tipping fee paid by municipalities using the WTE facility, the value of the ferrous and non-ferrous scrap collected, the value of cogenerated heat used by adjacent industrial plants or for district heating, and the renewable energy carbon credits.
There are environmental benefits as well. Since WTE plants conserve fossil fuels by generating electricity, 1 ton of MSW combusted reduces oil use by 1 barrel (35 gallons) or 0.25 tons of high-heating value coal.
WTE facilities are primarily regulated under the federal Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. WTE plants do not have the aqueous emissions that may be experienced in landfills and reduce the space required for landfilling by about 90%, says WTERT. There are economies of scale to be considered in constructing a WTE plant, with larger plants resulting in lower costs per ton of processed MSW. In the US, most WTE facilities range 500–3,000 tpd.
