An In-depth Look At Waste’s Role in Energy
A few months ago, I did a review of the book, The Story of Stuff. While the book was good, I was alarmed at the author Annie Leonard’s, unflattering views of waste-to-energy. For decades, municipal waste companies have been burning their trash. Known as incineration, Leonard says that this causes a multitude of problems, the first being burning pollutes and spews toxins into the air.
She writes, “Waste-to-Energy Plants Should Be Called Waste of Energy…But here’s the deal: first off, the little bit of energy recovered from burning trash is a very dirty energy, releasing far more greenhouse gases than burning natural gas, oil, or even coal. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, waste incinerators produce 1,355 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour; coal produces 1,020, oil 758, and natural gas 515.”
Leonard continues, “Second, let’s step back and look at the grand scheme of things for a moment. When you bum something, the most energy you can recover is a fraction of the energy value (the “calories”) of the actual material; you can’t recover any of the energy investments of that thing’s entire lifecycle….If the ultimate goal is to conserve energy, we could “produce” far more energy by reusing and recycling Stuff than we ever could by burning it.”
So in a nutshell, waste-to-energy pollutes, it has a negative net energy, it doesn’t create jobs, they don’t eliminate the need for landfills and they are not economically feasible to name a few reasons to not like the energy source. You’ll also note that for the most part, these are the very same reasons (minus the waste-to-energy reduces pollution) opponents support waste-to-energy.
So who is right and why should we care? Well I was bothered knowing that millions and millions of people have visited her website and watched her videos and they may be getting outdated information. So I’m taking action.
In just a few weeks, the Municipal Solid Waste to Biofuels Summit is taking place in Chicago. On February 10-11, 2011, hundreds of people will be coming to together to discuss the up and coming waste-to-energy technologies. Leading up to this conference, I’m kicking off a 7-part series, “An In-depth Look at Waste’s Role in Energy Development.”
This series will explore the developments of waste-to-energy from the 70s or so until now. It will delve more deeply into Leonard’s claim that waste-to-energy plants actually produce more greenhouse gases than coal, oil and natural gas, It will discuss the opportunities and challenges in the industry, and it will feature various companies’ technologies who are excited for the opportunity to “clean” up the misconceptions surrounding waste-to-energy.
5 Comments
BIOblogger
Joanna -
Good timing for a worthwhile series. I recommend you and your readers check out the Bioenergy Producers Association website ( http://www.bioenergyproducers.org ) – a group that has been fighting for energy recovery (biopower and biofuels) from post-recyclables in Sacramento, CA for five years. My companion Biowaste Blog is at http://biowaste.blogspot.com.
If the alchemy of converting post-recyclables is not socially or environmentally acceptable then what is? IMHO, there is no more sustainable feedstock for energy conversion than MSW post-recyclables.
Rod Muir - Sierra Club Canada
(Meaningful amounts of) Energy from Waste is a Myth
The internet is a truly amazing source of information.
Amongst other gems you come across are Powerpoint presentations.
I found one several years ago presented by a Covanta Representative. Covanta owns and operates, I believe, the greatest number of incinerations in the U.S.
One powerpoint slide discussed the amount of energy in a green garbage bag of household waste.
1 green garbage bag = 1 – 50 watt light bulb for 2 days. 1!
The amount of household energy consumption via lighting – 5%
So in other words all the waste from a home probably supplies 1% or less of energy needs.
Alan Watson
Very recent data from the Government [1] shows that even when you don’t include biogenic carbon (short-cycle carbon from plants) incineration still has very high emissions at 540g/kWh compared with most other sources and enormous compared with the targets for decarbonised electricity supply.
Data from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills shows that UK Average Mix electricity generation for 2007/8 had a carbon intensity of c.480 g CO2/kWh so any new incineration capacity raises the average and is a step backwards.
A few ‘Old Coal’ plants may produces more non-biogenic carbon than incineration – but nobody is building these stations any more and they are not normally used for base load generation. Any new stations should be carbon capture ready as a minimum. With carbon capture the emissions would be much lower than incinerators
The UK target for 2030 is 80 g/kWh about 15% of the emissions level of incinerators.
Recycling waste, by contrast, produces huge carbon savings. Climate change economist Nicholas Stern [2] wrote:
“Recycling is already making a major contribution to keeping down emissions. Indeed, its scale is so little appreciated that it might be described as one of the ‘best kept secrets’ in energy and climate change….New technologies for separating out forms of waste could also have a great impact.”
[1] HC Deb, 17 January 2011, c480W
Incinerators: Carbon Emissions
Stephen Gilbert: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what estimate his Department has made of the average emissions in grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt hour of (a) incinerator and (b) other thermal energy-from-waste facilities. [33808]
Gregory Barker: Within the UK, incinerators which generate electricity from municipal solid waste (MSW) are commonly referred to as energy from waste (EfW) plant. In 2008, the latest year for which data are available, we estimate that EfW plant produce 0.54 kt carbon dioxide equivalent per GWh (equivalent to 0.54 kg per kWh). This figure incorporates emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. It should be noted that there is a high level of uncertainty around this figure.
All other incinerators in the UK, such as chemical or clinical waste incinerators, animal carcass incinerators or crematoria, do not generate any electricity. These are just “waste incinerators” and are typically smaller in capacity than the energy from waste plant used for MSW energy recovery and disposal.
[2] Stern, N. (2009). Blueprint for a Safer Planet, The Bodley Head.
Alan Watson
Please note ‘the Government’ in the previous post refers to the British Government..
It is important to add that the ‘short-cycle’ or Biogenic carbon should be included in the total emissions from incinerators. A 2007 editorial by leading expert Ari Rabl in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment [1] said:
“In a part of the LCA community, a special convention has been established according to which CO2 emissions need not be counted if emitted by biomass. For example, many studies on waste incineration do not take into account CO2 from biomass within the incinerated waste, arguing that the creation of biomass has removed as much CO2 as is emitted during its combustion.
This is not a reasonable approach and “The logic of such a practice“ Rabl added:
“would imply absurd conclusions, e.g. that the CO2 emitted by burning a tropical forest, if not counted, would equalize the climate impact of burning a forest and preserving it, which is obviously wrong. Likewise, the benefit of adding carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to a biomass fuelled power plant would not be evaluated because that CO2 is totally omitted from the analysis”.
The incineration industry may like to pretend that a molecule of biogenic carbon dioxide has a different effect on the atmosphere from fossil carbon but as the alternatives include sequestration (capturing the carbon over long periods of time) or very slow releases from composting then such pretence is extremely damaging. The next ten years will be a crucial period in reducing carbon emissions to atmosphere – incineration can only make things worse.
[1] Rabl, A., A. Benoist, et al. (2007). “Editorial – How to Account for CO2 Emissions from Biomass in an LCA.” International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 12(5): 281.
Part 1: An Overview of Waste-to-Energy - Domestic Fuel
[...] this week, I announced that I was kicking off a series on waste-to-energy and many people have already expressed comments and feedback on the subject. It is probably no [...]
Comments RSS feed —