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CleanTechnica: Waste-To-Energy Plant To Be Constructed In Nottinghamshire

from Nicholas Brown of CleanTechnica:

At the site of the old Bilsthorpe Colliery, a new(ish) idea will be put to use. That is a synthesis gas generator. This plant will collect waste from Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, and surrounding areas to convert it into synthesis gas (also called syngas) via plasma gasification. This gas will then undergo a purification process before using it to generate electricity for exportation into the internal electricity grid. This is an alternative to the more traditional waste-to-energy approach of rubbish incineration (setting fire to piles of rubbish).

This is one of multiple forms of waste-to-energy power plant technologies which have been on the rise.

This facility will process up to 97,000 tonnes of feedstock annually (feedstock is raw material to be fed into an industrial process), and it can generate 16.6 MW of energy. It can both directly accept feedstock or prepare it itself using the materials recycling facility.

Artists impression of the Bilsthorpe plant. (Waste2Tricity/CleanTechnica)

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letsrecycle: Air Products EfW facility nears completion

from Tom Goulding of letsrecycle:

Work on a 350,000 tonne capacity gasification plant in Tees Valley is nearing completion, with commercial operations due to begin by mid-2014.

Industrial gas and equipment supplier Air Products will treat municipal, commercial and industrial waste at its energy-from-waste facility near Billingham, diverting it from privately-owned Impetus’ nearby landfill site.

Air Products has not revealed whether contracts to supply waste to feed the plant have been secured, but told letsrecycle.com all waste would derive from the local area.

The plant gained planning permission from Stockton-on-Tees borough council in August 2011, while environmental permits needed to operate the site have also been granted by the Environment Agency (see letsrecycle.com story).

Costing an estimated $500 million (£320 million), the facility has been funded almost entirely by the US-based company, with a £260,000 government grant also awarded by One North East in 2010.

The 350,000 tonne capacity Air Products gasification plant will cost an estimated £320 million. (letsrecycle)

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Book excerpt: Incineration: The Biggest Obstacle to Zero Waste

by Paul Connett, posted on Earth Island Journal:

It is hard to understand why any rational official living in the twenty-first century and facing the critical need to develop sustainable solutions would countenance the squandering of finite material and huge financial resources on a nonsustainable practice like incineration. One European report has estimated that a combination of recycling and composting lowers greenhouse gas production forty-six times more than an incinerator producing electricity.

Incineration might make sense if we had another planet to go to, but without that sci-fi escape it must be resisted in favor of more down-to-earth solutions that we can live with – both within our local communities and on the planet as a whole. Both incineration and landfilling attempt to bury the evidence of an unacceptable throwaway lifestyle. Every incinerator built delays this fundamental realization by at least twenty-five years – about the time it takes to pay back the huge capital costs involved in building the facility, and during that time it has to be fed, leaving little room to allow for more sustainable solutions to coexist.

Ten Arguments Against Incineration
Argument 1: Incinerators Are Very Expensive

Incinerators remain formidably expensive, but that expense is often hidden from public view with giant public subsidies. To pay for the capital and operating costs, as well as the operators’ profit margins, the community or region will have to sign put-or-pay agreements, which trap them for twenty-five years or more. As the industry has struggled to make incineration safe, it has priced itself out of the market – or it would have if the market was applied on a level playing field.

Over half the capital cost of an incinerator built today goes into air pollution control equipment. Ironically, if the waste were not burned in the first place this hugely expensive equipment would not be necessary, nor would the toxic ash collected in these devices have to be sent to an expensive hazardous waste landfill, nor would the air emissions be subjected to very costly monitoring. But the public is being kept ill informed about the poor economics of incineration. Instead, they are being told that incineration is going to save their communities money.

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Howard Winn/SCMP: Air pollution continues to plague streets of HK; health costs pile up

Howard Winn, in his column for the SCMP, has tirelessly written articles for consecutive weeks to promote awareness over the continued poor state of air quality on the streets of Hong Kong; its slow but deadly and very costly effects on the health of Hong Kong’s citizens, especially children; and the lack of action and evidence of aptitude from the Hong Kong government in dealing with this matter:

How much longer for action on roadside pollution?

The Environmental Protection Department issued a statement yesterday morning pointing out that its air pollution indices at roadside air quality monitoring stations reached a “very high” level. However, turning to the Hedley Environmental Index (HEI), we see that it described air pollution over Hong Kong more graphically as being “very dangerous”.

The HEI is linked to World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines which indicate the levels beyond which air pollution begins to affect health.

In Causeway Bay, the hourly concentration of nitrogen dioxide at 5pm was 259ìg/m3 (micrograms per cubic metre), compared with the WHO guideline average level for a 24-hour period of 140ìg/m3 – i.e. 85 per cent over the WHO limit. At the roadside in Central, the nitrogen dioxide level was 338ìg/m3. The PM10 respirable particles were 99ìg/m3 and 105ìg/m3 at Causeway Bay and Central respectively, compared with the WHO short-term guide of 50ìg/m3.

Levels of the much more dangerous PM2.5 particles, which can enter the lungs, were also dangerously high at 65ìg/m3 and 61ìg/m3 in Causeway Bay and Central, compared with the WHO guideline of 25ìg/m3. These figures are way above WHO guideline levels.

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Lund-Harket: Energy from burning waste? Bad news for the climate

from Sam Lund-Harket, writing for the World Development Movement:

On Dirty Energy Month’s Global Day of Action – Don’t Burn Our Future: Against Waste Burning and for Zero Waste. Mariel Vilella from Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) writes about the consequences of refuse dirived fuel projects.

Municipal governments throughout the world are facing choices about how to manage the unending stream of waste generated by their residents and businesses. In some places landfills and dumpsites are filling up, and all landfills and dumpsites leak into the environment. As populations continue to grow, the issue of waste becomes more urgent and more complicated. Many regions are already facing a waste crisis, and drastic measures are needed.

It’s a golden opportunity for private companies with “innovative” waste technologies, which they claim, will not only eliminate waste but will also generate energy. Some municipal governments, seduced by the idea that they will be able to turn their urgent problem into something of immediate value, have made the mistake of investing significantly in refuse derived fuel (RDF) projects, resulting in the burning of waste in incinerators, biomass plants, cement kilns, and other combustion units.

However, producing and burning RDF does not make household and industrial waste disappear, nor is it an energy or climate solution. The basis of the technology is incineration, and the burning of garbage – whether in “waste to energy” (WTE) plants, incinerators, biomass plants, cement kilns, or other industrial burners – involves an unsustainable consumption of natural resources, pollutes the environment, increases climate change, compromises human health, and seriously disrupts the lives of huge numbers of informal sector recyclers, specially in the Global South.

Moreover, despite burning RDF involves paper, plastic, and metals that come from finite natural resources such as forests, energy from incinerators is considered ‘renewable’. Even if plastics and tires are made of oil; incinerators, biomass plants and cement kilns burn them as ‘alternative fuels’, taking advantage of this blatant ‘green washing’. Not only this is a distortion of what should be deemed a sustainable, clean, and renewable energy source, it’s an extremely inefficient use of resources, as it requires an enormous amount of waste to produce a small amount of energy. Ultimately, burning these resources creates a demand for more “waste” and discourages the real solutions: conservation, redesigned packaging and products, reuse, recycling, and composting.

Countries like the UK, China, India or the US, are strongly supporting the production and burning of RDF through the application of renewable energy subsidies to these practices, amongst other bonuses for these industries. Take the example of the planned Barton Renewable Energy Plant in Urmston, Greater Manchester, which if built, it will burn 75% biomass and 25% RDF. Despite the fierce opposition of the local Council and community, the UK government has pushed its approval arguing the necessity to meet the Renewable Energy national targets.

In China, the energy generated by incineration is subsidized at the same level as solar and wind power, and 0.38% of the energy cost on-grid is covered by public funds.  A similar situation can be found in India, where government’s pledge to double the capacity for renewable energy without mentioning specific sources has been met with skepticism and controversy.  In the US, most federal energy subsidies that benefit incineration are actually meant to support the development of real renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and micro-hydro, which should not have to compete against dirty energy for the same funding. Read more on this here.

Investments are needed to think waste out of the system, but not through burning but through practical, bottom-up, decentralized strategies and urban solutions for reducing climate pollution and conserving energy and natural resources. These efforts go hand-in-hand with clean production, producer responsibility, and waste minimization programs for dangerous and hard-to-recycle materials. In contrast with the primitive idea of burning our garbage, recycling and composting create livelihoods, save money, and protect the environment and public health.

8 Nov 2013

GAIA: Waste Incinerators – Bad News for Recycling and Waste Reduction

from GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives), October 2013 edition

Waste incineration undermines recycling. Rather than operating in tandem—where recyclables are recycled and only non-recyclables are burned—incineration and recycling typically compete for the same waste materials, the same government funds, and the same waste management contracts. This conflict is particularly clear in so-called “waste-to-energy” incinerators, and is also true for burners that do not recover energy. Despite the fact that incinerators are below recycling in the waste hierarchy, they are very often prioritized above recycling at the local level, and as a result, they have had a consistently negative impact on waste prevention and recycling efforts, as well as on workers who make a living from recycling.

Incineration is an expensive and rigid, technology-dependent, long-term waste management strategy. Thus, for many local governments, opting for this method means using all or most of their waste management budgets, leaving little funds for strategies such as prevention, recycling, and composting. Incinerators that produce some energy depend upon the materials in waste that have high calorific value, and the items with high calorific value are precisely the materials readily processed by recycling programs: paper, cardboard, and plastics. Burning these valuable materials is wasteful because incineration captures only one fifth of the calories in these materials, while recycling saves three to five times the energy due to energy savings from using recycled feedstock for manufacturing instead of extracting virgin resources.

When competing for the same materials, incineration tends to beat out recycling for several reasons:

1. Incineration contracts typically include a “put-or-pay” clause that requires the municipality to deliver a minimum quantity of waste or pay fees to compensate the incinerator company for lost profits. Put-or-pay agreements, which the incinerator industry typically includes in contracts, encourage the incineration of discards and undermine waste prevention, composting, and recycling.

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GAIA: Incinerators – Myths vs Facts about “Waste to Energy”

from GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives), February 2012 issue

INCINERATION is a waste treatment technology that involves burning commercial, residential and hazardous waste. Incineration converts discarded materials, including paper, plastics, metals and food scraps into bottom ash, fly ash, combustion gases, air pollutants, wastewater, wastewater treatment sludge and heat. There are 113 waste incinerators in the U.S. and 86 of these are used to generate electricity. No new incinerators have been built in the U.S. after 1997, due to public opposition, identified health risks, high costs, and the increase of practices such as recycling and composting. In recent years, the incinerator industry has tried to expand their sector by marketing their facilities as “Waste to Energy” (WTE), using misleading claims.

MYTH 1: Waste incineration is a source of renewable energy.
FACT: Municipal waste is non-renewable, consisting of discarded materials such as paper, plastic and glass that are derived from finite natural resources such as forests that are being depleted at unsustainable rates. Burning these materials in order to generate electricity creates a demand for “waste” and discourages much-needed efforts to conserve resources, reduce packaging and waste and encourage recycling and composting. More than 90% of materials currently disposed of in incinerators and landfills can be reused, recycled and composted.1 Providing subsidies or incentives for incineration encourages local governments to destroy these materials, rather than investing in environmentally sound and energy conserving practices such as recycling and composting.

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Incinerators shown to be worst option; HK officials press with Shek Kwu Chau as ‘best option’

It is a bad plan that cannot be altered” – Publilius Syrus

Hong Kong officials are adamant about pressing ahead with the Shek Kwu Chau incinerator as the future for the city’s municipal solid waste treatment. After readers of the SCMP sent in suggestions to avert such a course, a representative from the Environmental Protection Department, Elvis W.K. Au, sent in a discombobulating response. It reads:

I wish to respond to the letters by Mary Melville on the disposal of food waste (“Environment-friendly fix makes molehill of food waste mountain [1]”, October 12) and Frank Lee on thermal waste treatment technologies (“Officials stick with outdated technology [2]”, October 24).

We have already examined the use of a food waste grinder. It merely transfers the food waste from the solid waste disposal system to the liquid waste disposal system without any enhanced treatment.

It would also increase both sewage pollution loads and the amount of sewage, with adverse impact on the existing sewerage network and sewage treatment works. The higher solid contents will lead to the need for higher sewer maintenance frequency and costs, as well as higher risks of sewer blockage.

Continue reading this absurd letter here:

Largest American landfill shuts down while HK plans to expand existing landfills

The largest American landfill, located at Puente Hills in Southern California, has been closed down.

While its closure has been an admistrative certainty – a decision made in 2003 – what made it possible is the recycling efforts that goes into sorting trash. In addition to residential efforts, privately-operated waste disposal companies operate their own recycling facilities, which ensures that the maximum amount of recyclables is extracted and exported for re-use in manufacturing. The landfill thus saw its input drastically reduced from 13,200 tons a day in 2003, to 7,500 tons a day in 2013 – a number that can be handled by alternative facilities, avoiding a ‘trash’ crisis when the landfill closed.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, officials are pushing to expand its existing landfills, paying lip service to the concerns voiced by nearby residents about the impact on their living environment. To make matters worse, their insistence in building an incinerator as the future go-to facility for trash disposal not only threatens to render recycling efforts redundant (since incinerators will need to take the recyclables and additional fuel to combust waste), it will continue to feed the necessity for landfilling, in order to dispose of the highly toxic ash produced at the end of incineration – an even more harmful substance to be landfilled than normal trash.

Click here to read the coverage:

Rift over aircraft emissions tax widens

Earlier this month, an agreement was reached at the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) conference in Montreal over a scheme to tax airlines for exceeding carbon emissions quotas. This was the result of a dispute between the EU, who wanted to impose its version of the carbon tax over non-EU carriers, and the non-EU countries who condemned it as an extraterritorial tax. While there was hope that it would be a roadmap for a comprehensive scheme to be written by 2016 and for airlines to comply by 2020, it is now threatening to fall apart: EU officials consider the agreement ’empty’ and the threats of foreign airlines and governments to be an assault on their own sovereign rights to legislate, and non-EU countries, already hesitant to ratify the agreement, is unhappy that the EU is about to disregard it altogether.

Read the coverage from Reuters: