Disposing of waste in landfills is the most commonly used waste management technique in the United States, accounting for 69 percent of total garbage disposal. Some local governments, however, have started to send their trash to energy-from-waste (EfW) facilities, totaling 7 percent of waste disposal.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for every ton of garbage processed at an EfW facility, approximately one ton of emitted carbon dioxide equivalent in the atmosphere is prevented. This is because the trash burned at an EfW facility doesn’t generate methane, as it would at a landfill; the metals that would have been sent to the landfill are recycled instead of thrown out, and the electricity generated offsets the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that would otherwise have been generated from coal and natural gas plants.
The European Environmental Agency (EEA) contends that increasing rates of recycling and EfW will decrease the amount of GHGs a country emits. After an EEA study on the subject was released, the European Union adopted proactive waste policies, including the promotion of recycling and EfW as alternative waste management strategies. In fact, the European waste sector achieved a 34 percent GHG emissions reduction from 1990 to 2007, the largest pollution reduction of any industry in the EU.
The EPA and EEA are not alone in recognizing the benefits of EfW. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called EfW a “key [GHG] mitigation measure,” and the World Economic Forum included EfW in its list of technologies likely to make a significant contribution to a future low-carbon energy system.
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The EFW Process
Once the trash has been delivered to the EfW facility, it is dropped into a pit where a grapple will transfer the trash to a combustion chamber. Inside this chamber, the trash is burned, which causes the water to boil and leads to the creation of steam. The steam then spins turbines to generate electricity. Throughout this process, filters trap fly ash, particulate matter and metals from the trash that are not burned and are collected for recycling or used in projects such as road construction and landfill cover material. Gases from the burned waste are collected, filtered and cleaned before being emitted. The remaining quantities of residue are collected through the filters, stored and then sent to landfills for disposal. The electricity generated as a result of the spinning turbines goes to a switchyard and then gets transferred onto the grid for utilization and purchase.
A typical EfW plant is able to generate about 550 kilowatt-hours per ton of waste while complying with all state and federal standards. This process has led many to recognize EfW facilities as a form of renewable-energy technology. In fact, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which authorized loan guarantees, tax credits and energy bonds for technologies that avoid GHG pollution, included it as a renewable energy resource.
Under the Clean Air Act, EfW facilities must use the most modern air-pollution-control equipment available to ensure the smokestack emissions—carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, soot and mercury—are safe for human health and the environment. All facilities are specifically subject to regulations under the EPA’s Maximum Achievable Control Technology Standards (MACTS), which created emissions standards for industrial and commercial industries. Because of the high temperatures inside the combustion chambers, most pollutants do not escape through the smokestacks, but scrubbing devices are installed in all EfW facilities as another control system to limit dangerous emissions.
EfW plants do involve large upfront expenditures, which can be a hurdle when building a new facility. A new EfW plant typically requires at least $100 million to finance construction costs, and this could be doubled or tripled depending on the size of the plant. In order to finance the plant, facilities will require municipal revenue bonds, which are issued by local governments or agencies to secure revenue for essential service infrastructure projects and are repaid with interest. Long-term contracts, however, often are developed between the facility and the county or city government that secure the facility waste tipping fee, or the price charged for the trash received at a processing facility that is then used to pay back bonds and operating costs. Contracts also are established with utilities to receive income from the electricity generated and sold to the grid. This money is then used to pay back the bonds with interest.
Furthermore, hauling trash to landfills is expensive for large cities in America. New York City, for example, paid more than $300 million last year just to transport trash to out-of-state landfills. In these cases, EfW facilities could be immediately beneficial by saving governments money while generating jobs and local revenue from an EfW facility. In other regions of the nation, however, it can be cheaper to send trash to landfills when looking at a short-term economic analysis because of the amount of land available for trash disposal. Arkansas has an average landfill tipping fee of $35 per ton of garbage and has a reserve capacity of more than 600 years. This is less than the U.S. average tipping fee of $45 per ton and also is below the average tipping fee at an EfW facility of $68 per ton. But on a long-term economic basis, EfW facilities cost less than disposing of waste in landfills because of returns from the electricity sold and even the sale of recovered metals. Indeed, Jeremy K. O’Brien, director of applied research for the solid waste management advocacy organization Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), writes that, “Over the life of the [EfW] facility, which is now confidently projected to be in the range of 40 to 50 years, a community can expect to pay significantly less for MSW (municipal solid waste) disposal at a[n] [EfW] facility than at a regional MSW landfill.”
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Recommendations
The U.S. currently has 86 EfW plants operating in 24 states processing more than 97,000 tons of waste per day. The New England region—Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York—alone has 37 operating plants. Connecticut has the highest percentage of its waste going to EfW plants of any state—about 70 percent of its nonrecyclable trash—and nearly 25 percent of its waste is recycled. According to Eileen Berenyi of the research and consulting firm Governmental Advisory Associates, EfW in Connecticut contributes $428 million annually to the state’s revenue and has created nearly 1,000 jobs since its introduction in the northeastern state.
Despite the economic benefits of EfW facilities, the U.S. as a whole is not taking advantage of EfW technology, especially when compared with Europe. Countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Sweden have proved that recycling and EfW management go hand in hand. These five nations have the highest recycling rates in Europe and have reduced their dependence on landfills to 1 percent or below. European nations have been able to achieve these rates because of the EU Landfill Directive, which allows different countries to implement their own programs and policies to drive down the amount of garbage sent to landfills—whether that involves raising landfill fees or increasing recycling collection schemes. Nations in Europe also recognize EfW as a renewable energy source and are using this technology to help reach renewable energy targets.
Because of strong nationwide policies, the EU member states sent 19 percent less trash to landfills in 2011 compared with 2001. This ultimately decreases the amount of GHGs emitted from landfills and helps fight climate change. In order for the U.S. to begin reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills, increasing recycling rates and generating renewable energy, an MSW portfolio standard must be enacted by Congress and applied nationwide in order to decrease GHG emissions from landfills. Individual states could benefit from including EfW in current renewable energy portfolio standards.
MSW portfolio standard. If the United States set an MSW portfolio standard, it would not only increase the nation’s rates of recycling and composting but would also significantly decrease the amount of garbage destined for landfills. As numerous European nations have already demonstrated, recycling efforts must be included in any national policy to reduce the level of waste in landfills. A few U.S. states have already established MSW strategies. California and Florida, for example, have enacted a 75 percent recycling (including composting) goal by 2020. Establishing incentives for recycling, such as providing homes and businesses with free recycling containers in conjunction with free pickup for recyclables, and creating a market for recyclable materials is paramount to achieving those standards. Specifically, an executive order requiring federal government agencies to purchase recycled-content materials will establish a market for these products.
By learning from what some states have successfully implemented, a nationwide standard could be created that mirrors what the EU has established. Doing so would protect the environment, conserve energy and reduce GHGs.
Include EfW generation. States’ adoption of renewable energy standards, which require electric utility companies to produce a portion of their electricity from renewable resources, has considerably driven clean-energy advances in recent years. The 29 states and the District of Columbia that have such standards also include landfill gas as an eligible technology, but only 21 states and the D.C. recognize EfW as an eligible technology. Maryland has shown the most leadership in this area by raising EfW from a Tier II to a Tier I technology—the same level that solar and wind energy are on—in the renewable portfolio standard. This will increase the percentage of renewable energy from EfW plants allowed in states’ portfolio standards. Other states should look to Maryland and Connecticut and adopt similar policies or seek to modify existing waste management policies so as to reduce incentives for, and reliance on, landfills and complement their renewable portfolio standard goals.
Importantly, states should modify their renewable programs so they are consistent with the solid waste hierarchy outlined by the EPA. While the solid waste hierarchy identifies landfills as the least-preferred method for managing waste, landfills—including ones with methane gas capture —are typically placed on equal or higher standing in renewable programs than EfW. This unintended encouragement of the use of landfills undermines efforts to reduce that reliance, as well as state renewable and GHG reduction goals. Such significant financial support for landfills inhibits the growth of solid waste management methods such as recycling and EfW further up in the solid waste hierarchy.
Conclusion
EfW and recycling and composting efforts are a win-win-win for the U.S. EfW generates clean electricity, decreases GHGs that would have been emitted from landfills and fossil fuel power plants and pairs well with increased recycling rates in states. Recycling and composting reduces trash that is destined for the landfill that would have emitted GHGs while decomposing, saves energy that would have been used for the production of a virgin material and decreases the need to mine for raw materials, which will ultimately preserve our nation’s natural resources.
Matt Kasper is a special assistant for the energy policy team at the Center for American Progress, Washington, D.C.
More information is available at www.americanprogress.org.