• EIA Kids Page: Waste to Energy
  
• Construct a calorimeter from simple recyclable material and use it to measure the amount of energy stored in paper and yard waste that could be used to generate electricity (grades 8-12).
  
• Bury, Burn or Return: Winning the War Against Waste (grades 8-12)
  
• Waste-to-Energy: A Comprehensive Energy Curriculum
  
• A guide to integration of solid waste management into the school curriculum
  
• Understanding Integrated Waste Management
  
• Students will be able to understand that some waste material can be burned to generate electricity (grades 6-8).
  

This incineration plant is one of several plants that provides district heating in Vienna.

Waste-to-energy (WtE) or energy-from-waste (EfW) in its strictest sense refers to any waste treatment that creates energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from a waste source. Such technologies reduce or eliminate waste that is traditionally streamed to a "greenhouse gas" emitting landfill, or consume waste materials from existing landfills. WtE is also called energy recovery. Most WtE processes produce electricity directly through combustion, or produce a combustible fuel commodity, such as methane, methanol, ethanol or synthetic fuels.

Incineration

Main article: incineration

Incineration, the combustion of organic material such as waste, with energy recovery is the most common WtE implementation. Incineration may also be implemented without energy and materials recovery, but this is increasingly being banned in OECD countries. Furthermore, all new WtE plants in OECD countries must meet strict emission standards. Hence, modern incineration plants are vastly different from the old types, some of which neither recovered energy nor materials. Modern incinerators reduce the volume of the original waste by 95-96 %, depending upon composition and degree of recovery of materials such as metals from the ash for recycling^[1].

Modern incinerators still have expert and local community concerns about bioaccumulate fine particulate PM2.5 emissions downwind, metal, trace dioxins and acid gas emissions, climate change CO2 footprints, toxic fly ash and incinerator bottom ash or IBA management as well as waste resource ethics such as valuable resource destruction, low energy efficiency (usually 14-28%) and reducing the incentives and threshold for recycling and waste minimisation activities. Incineration in any form WtE, EfW, or CHP is rejected in the zero waste movement as a viable, sustainable or ethical solution to managing waste resources or energy recovery. Some health and air emissions experts still have their concerns regarding unmonitored fine particulates amounts at specifically PM2.5 emissions level and the effectiveness of electroplate and bag filters. Other technology developers such as those developing plasma arc gasification PGP or anaerobic digestion AD following autoclaving MHT or advanced mechanical biological treatment MBT[ [AMBT]]; claim more advanced and more effective technologies and suggest investment in incineration as a future technology is a wasted investment.

WtE technologies other than incineration

There are a number of other new and emerging technologies that are able to produce energy from waste and other fuels without direct combustion. Many of these technologies have the potential to produce more electric power from the same amount of fuel than would be possible by direct combustion. This is mainly due to the separation of corrosive components (ash) from the converted fuel, thereby allowing a higher combustion temperatures in e.g. boilers, gas turbines, internal combustion engines, fuel cells. Some are able to efficiently convert the energy into liquid or gaseous fuels:

Thermal technologies:

• Gasification (produces combustible gas, hydrogen, synthetic fuels)
• Pyrolysis (produces combustible tar/biooil)
• Plasma arc gasification PGP or plasma gasification process (produces rich syngas Hydrogen Carbon Monoxide usable for fuel cells or generating electricity / CHP 60% efficient, useable vitrified silicate and metal ingots, salt and sulphur)

Non-thermal technologies:

• Anaerobic digestion (Biogas rich on methane)
• Ethanol production
• Mechanical biological treatment
  • MBT-Anaerobic digestion
  • MBT-Refuse derived fuel

See also

• Incineration
• List of solid waste treatment technologies
• Waste management

External links

• Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council

References

1. ^ Waste to Energy in Denmark by Ramboll Consult