An Independent Engineering Evaluation of Waste-to-Energy Technologies
Waste-to-Energy (WTE) or energy-from-waste is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from the incineration of waste. In the U.S., some cities primarily in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic, burn part of their municipal solid wastes. Hemmed in by major population centers, landfill space in these areas is at a premium, so burning wastes to reduce their volume and weight makes sense. Combustion reduces the volume of material by about 90 percent and its weight by 75 percent. The heat generated by burning wastes has other uses, as well, as it can be used directly for heating, to produce steam or to generate electricity.
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Governments across the emerging markets are eager to tap into waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies
But many are learning that it takes more than the granting of licenses to create economically and environmentally sustainable WTE solutions. In this article, we look at a number of Southeast Asian markets to identify both new projects and barriers to adoption. We also provide several tips to help governments and planners in the successful development of their WTE initiatives.
Technologies
The technologies described in this paper all produce energy, we will not address pure incineration or other means of reducing municipal solid waste that does not produce energy. We will also not address the Non-Thermal Technologies (Anaerobic Digestion, Landfill Gas, or Hydrolysis and Mechanical Biological Treatment.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a technical evaluation of the available technologies and provide an indicative cost estimate ranges associated with each.
The technologies we reviewed are as follows:
- Thermal Technologies
- Direct Combustion (Mass Burn and RDF)
- Pyrolysis
- Conventional Gasification
- Plasma Arc Gasification