Waste to energy technology presents a viable solution
Michael O’Brien’s Feb. 27 viewpoint on a regional solid waste disposal facility mentions incineration as an option. I prefer to use the term WTE, waste to energy, because an incinerator is defined only as a furnace for burning wastes. Decades ago, as a young environmental engineer in the state Department of Environmental Conservation, I shut down several polluting waste incinerators that lacked proper controls.
The Albany ANSWERS refuse-derived fuel facility was proposed in the 1970s. Initially, the project’s consultants recommended that room be left for additional pollution controls. At that time, I and Aaron Teller, my mentor and former dean of engineering at Cooper Union University, advocated the use of dry scrubbers to control emissions from municipal waste incinerators. This came from technology transfer from the aluminum industry, as one of the best dry scrubbers was put into use by Alcoa in Massena in 1969 and is still in use. We published a key paper on controlling dioxin emissions using such dry scrubbers, in 1983. Unfortunately, I was excluded from the review of the ANSWERS project, and my recommendations were ignored.
This facility was built in 1980 with circa 1960, poor air pollution controls, and approved by state officials. It polluted the Sheridan Hollow neighborhood in Albany where it was located and created many local opponents of burning wastes. Today, they still object to properly burning wastes for energy.
I recently attended an international renewable energy conference in Israel, where I spoke on “Converting a Major Environmental Problem to a Source of Renewable Energy.” Former Gov. George Pataki was a keynote speaker. Pataki, now of counsel to the New York City law firm of Chadbourne & Parke, spoke on encouraging the use of renewable energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He also endorses WTE as a renewable energy source.
Modern WTE technologies involve enhanced waste recycling and separation, high-efficiency combustion and advanced air pollution controls including dry scrubbing. The European Union has banned polluting landfills for organic wastes, and uses WTE solutions to provide heat and power for more than 30 million people.
In Hamburg, Germany, a modern WTE facility burns about 1,000 tons of waste daily with emissions equivalent to less than what a dozen cars produce. The facility also recycles metals, and some collected contaminants, and produces a road construction aggregate from its residues.
Meanwhile, New York City wastes about $1 billion a year shipping several million tons of waste to distant landfills in Virginia and other states, also wasting millions of gallons of fuel oil and causing much diesel vehicular air pollution. That results in several times more the amount of particulate emissions than a well-controlled WTE facility and greatly increases greenhouse gas global warming emissions from waste transport and landfilling. Other misguided cities such as Schenectady also do similar things. Newer WTE technologies can generate about 700 killowatts of electricity per ton of waste, as each ton of municipal waste has the energy of a barrel of oil. Thus the economic value of electrical energy generated from cleanly burning municipal solid waste can be about $100 per ton of waste.
Opponents of WTE tout zero waste solutions, composting and full recycling of waste components. Zero waste concepts are meaningful if they mean zero waste to landfills. Composting municipal wastes is problematic because of contamination that can result, and recycling is limited by technical and economic factors. Only 20 percent of plastics can be recycled, and it’s absurd to bury such high energy wastes. Advanced nations like Germany, Holland and Denmark have waste recycling rates double that of ours, as high as 60 percent, using WTE. That shows that WTE solutions increase recycling.
As a philosopher once said, wisdom is not knowing what lies ahead, but rather, what comes next?
Jack D. Lauber of Latham is a professional chemical and board certified environmental engineer and a research associate at Columbia University’s Earth Engineering Center.
By JACK D. LAUBER
The Albany ANSWERS refuse-derived fuel facility was proposed in the 1970s. Initially, the project’s consultants recommended that room be left for additional pollution controls. At that time, I and Aaron Teller, my mentor and former dean of engineering at Cooper Union University, advocated the use of dry scrubbers to control emissions from municipal waste incinerators. This came from technology transfer from the aluminum industry, as one of the best dry scrubbers was put into use by Alcoa in Massena in 1969 and is still in use. We published a key paper on controlling dioxin emissions using such dry scrubbers, in 1983. Unfortunately, I was excluded from the review of the ANSWERS project, and my recommendations were ignored.
This facility was built in 1980 with circa 1960, poor air pollution controls, and approved by state officials. It polluted the Sheridan Hollow neighborhood in Albany where it was located and created many local opponents of burning wastes. Today, they still object to properly burning wastes for energy.
I recently attended an international renewable energy conference in Israel, where I spoke on “Converting a Major Environmental Problem to a Source of Renewable Energy.” Former Gov. George Pataki was a keynote speaker. Pataki, now of counsel to the New York City law firm of Chadbourne & Parke, spoke on encouraging the use of renewable energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He also endorses WTE as a renewable energy source.
Modern WTE technologies involve enhanced waste recycling and separation, high-efficiency combustion and advanced air pollution controls including dry scrubbing. The European Union has banned polluting landfills for organic wastes, and uses WTE solutions to provide heat and power for more than 30 million people.
In Hamburg, Germany, a modern WTE facility burns about 1,000 tons of waste daily with emissions equivalent to less than what a dozen cars produce. The facility also recycles metals, and some collected contaminants, and produces a road construction aggregate from its residues.
Meanwhile, New York City wastes about $1 billion a year shipping several million tons of waste to distant landfills in Virginia and other states, also wasting millions of gallons of fuel oil and causing much diesel vehicular air pollution. That results in several times more the amount of particulate emissions than a well-controlled WTE facility and greatly increases greenhouse gas global warming emissions from waste transport and landfilling. Other misguided cities such as Schenectady also do similar things. Newer WTE technologies can generate about 700 killowatts of electricity per ton of waste, as each ton of municipal waste has the energy of a barrel of oil. Thus the economic value of electrical energy generated from cleanly burning municipal solid waste can be about $100 per ton of waste.
Opponents of WTE tout zero waste solutions, composting and full recycling of waste components. Zero waste concepts are meaningful if they mean zero waste to landfills. Composting municipal wastes is problematic because of contamination that can result, and recycling is limited by technical and economic factors. Only 20 percent of plastics can be recycled, and it’s absurd to bury such high energy wastes. Advanced nations like Germany, Holland and Denmark have waste recycling rates double that of ours, as high as 60 percent, using WTE. That shows that WTE solutions increase recycling.
As a philosopher once said, wisdom is not knowing what lies ahead, but rather, what comes next?
Jack D. Lauber of Latham is a professional chemical and board certified environmental engineer and a research associate at Columbia University’s Earth Engineering Center.
By JACK D. LAUBER
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