Waste to Energy from MSU, is it just a bunch of rubbish?

Historically, all around the world, urban waste has just been dumped into a big hole in the ground that has been prepared to maintain a certain level of health and safety standards (sometimes not even that). This has gotten to the point however, in both developed countries as well as emerging countries, that it is causing major problems

Sao Paulo, Brazil landfill

ranging from a lack of further sites available, to the use of expensive real estate with accompanying serious health andconstruction hazards.

The different conditions in each country, created by a variety of energy costs, fuel prices, lack of real estate available or just plain very expensive, requires innovative and different technology solutions and sometimes even a mix of them to create profitable and sustainable waste to energy plants.

Waste in Brazil

The country of Brazil currently has a prosperous economy based on a wide variety of exports in the
areas of minerals, oil, beef, coffee, and other commodities. Most recently, Brazil was chosen from a finalist list of the most leading countries in the world to be the host nation for the upcoming World Cup Soccer Finals in 2014 and the Summer Olympics to be held in 2016. In light of these upcoming events, The National Policy on Solid Waste (PNR) was promulgated on August 2, 2010, in order to promote changes in the waste scenarios for the many municipalities of Brazil. Federal Law No. 12.305/10 in force for less than a year already encourages the structuring of a new and important  economic sector in the country - only 25% of all waste is recovered or recycled, according to the recent report of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), "Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication”. This solid waste law paves the way for implementation of new technologies that treat this waste and benefit the many municipalities of Brazil and the rest of the world by further reduction in greenhouse gases.

With the entry into force of the national solid waste law, enacted in late 2010, new technologies to solve the problem of urban waste will begin to arrive in Brazil. By 2014, the country must eliminate landfills and improve the conditions of landfills that do not always treat the leachate and gases from the decomposition of garbage. Today, 63% of the waste collected in Brazil is not properly disposed of resulting in a large waste problem but also a great opportunity for companies that can solve these waste problems.

Among the technologies that are becoming competitive are the transformation of waste into fuels and electric power. The report warns that the world is expected to generate 13 billion tons of municipal waste by 2050. In Brazil, currently recycling generates $ 2 billion a year, or 0.3% of GDP, while preventing the emission of 10 million tons of greenhouse gases. Brazil has a very low cost of energy (currently 7₵/kWh) but has a large deficit of diesel the biggest opportunity therefore lies in transforming waste into biodiesel as the government has regulated a system by which Petrobras is obligated to buy the fuel at an actual 1,00€/liter.

Waste in India

Rapid economic growth is leading to urbanization and industrialization generating waste which is
adversely effecting the environment. To address the problem of waste management in the country the Ministry of Environment and forests, Government of India constituted a committee under a chairmanship to evolve a road map for the management of waste in India and to suggest a policy and strategy for achieving the same.

The Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000 was notified by the Ministry of Environment and Forests for management of Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW). Except a few large cities, by-and-large, local bodies of medium and smaller towns have not undertaken regular exercise on quantification and characterization of municipal solid wastes. The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) assessed MSW generation in the country to be 1,00,000 Metric Tons or 0.1 million metric tons per day (MMT/d) in the year 2001-02. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) made a survey of 59 cities in India during the year 2004-05 to assess the existing status of MSW management which included 35 metro cities and 24 State capitals. Based on this study and on census data of 2008, the MSW generation in the country has been estimated to be 0.573 (MMT/d) in the year 2008.

Municipalities have been mandated to implement the Municipal Solid Waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 2000 in all towns/cities of India to cover 100% collection, segregation and transportation of waste. However, hardly a few municipalities have taken initiatives for implementation of the Municipal Solid Waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 2000 to set up waste processing and waste disposal facilities.

Electricity although cheap (9¢/kWh), it is very scarce as India has an energy deficit of 200,000 MW according to the Ministry of Power of India. The waste in the country is mostly made up of organic material as scavengers have already taken all the metal, plastics and other sellable material to specific recycling plants. Also, due to the heavy rainfall in the country the waste has a 30% humidity content making it unsuitable for gasification or pyrolysis technologies. The solution, and therefore the business opportunity lies in producing a mix of electricity and biodiesel due to the low cost of energy and high demand for fuels. This requires a combination of technologies that are effective in producing electricity through biodigestion and syngas production on one hand and catalytic depolymerization for biofuels on the other.            Source: {R}evolution report, Greenpeace

Other scenarios and regions



In Southeast Asia for example, there two different scenarios. In some countries the price of electricity is very high reaching levels of up to 30¢/kWh making incineration and pyrolysis the choice as the direct production of electrical energy justifies the expense and gets high returns on a proven technology. In other countries or regions such as Hong King, Singapore and Macao the real estate occupied by the landfills justify the cost and implicit returns, albeit with a more sophisticated revenue model and capital structure. In other region where the cost of electricity is more reasonable innovative technology is required to produce bio fuels, fertilizers and chemicals to get over a proper IRR hurdle, the problem here though stems from the fact that many of these technologies are nascent and not bankable for the quantities of over a thousand tons per day which is required.

Comments

[Bongani Cibi]

Dear Javier, you just said a mouthful, my name is bongani cibi owner and founder of lotavha renewable energy consulting & engineers, I am proposing municipalities in my country south africa to reduce the opening more of landfills because landfills have lots of methane gasses as well as tires that are beind dumped at these landfills, we having a technology that we use to convert waste into treasure, mainly MSW (MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE) Medicak Waste and Tires into oil. I would like to work with you guys we belong to'BRICS' can we work together? kind regards. bongani cibi ( chairman & CEO )

[Gernot Trolf]

There are technologies in the WTE field that can turn any waste except atomic waste into energy.

[Mani Vannan]

Dear Javier,

We are a clean technology consultancy company based in London. Today we have a number of matured and proven technologies for waste to energy and waste to biofuel. However, these projects are viable under European and North American contexts where there is a concept of the gate fee and penalties for fly tipping. Even though India offers a lot of scope for waste to biofuel projects, the projects won't be financially viable unless the Government comes out with the policy on gate fees

Mani Vannan
Bridge Cleantech Solutions, London