P Schmidt-Pathmann — Nov 12 2007 01:04 PM

I like to nominate advanced thermal recycling (most advanced form of Waste to Energy) which is annything but the old 80's scheme. Below you will find a recent blog communication I had regarding the subject. I hope you will take the time to read it and feel free to contact me if you have any comments or questions:

Energy From Waste (EFW) Incineration - What’s the deal?
November 1st, 2007 • 4 Comments
I was reading a post today on EcoGeek regarding Energy-from-Waste Incineration technology, in particular, technology developed by Covanta. Since I had yet to make up my own mind about this technology, I decided to do some reading on the topic. I thought that I might share some of my findings with you. To start, Wikipedia provides an effective general definition of EFWs, stating that;
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 that would have alternatively been disposed of in landfill, also called energy recovery. Some WtE processes result in usable fuel commodity, such as methane, methanol, ethanol or synthetic fuels upon completion of process.
The methane generated from the process can then be burned off to create steam, which is used to generate electricity. Sounds great, right? Well, maybe not completely. As with any process that involves burning materials, there is concern for the content of the off-gases that are produced by those substances. EFW plants are no exception, and have been targeted for their potential to release Dioxins, Furans, CO2 and other nasty substances into the environment. According to an article on Wikipedia, municipal solid wastes
…contain approximately the same mass fraction of carbon as CO2 itself (27%), so incineration of one tonne of MSW produce approximately 1 tonne of CO2.
At first glance, this may seem to be trading once evil for another; however, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, allowing the same waste to biodegrade in a landfill (releasing methane to the atmosphere) may have as much or more severe of an impact, not to mention the material would be IN the landfill taking up space.
Historically, incineration plants were significant sources of Dioxins and Furans, however new technology has resulted in reductions of up to 99.9% in the release of these materials. Today, our own backyard barrel fires may be responsible for a larger release of these substances than incineration plants. Of course there are other forms of waste generated from these plants, including Fly Ash, Bottom Ash and heavy metals, which must be held in high-tech landfills designed to prevent leaching of these materials.
So it seems, based on the research I have been able to do, that the primary concern for these EFW plants is the production of greenhouse gases and hazardous waste, which are two categories that would also be satisfied by leaving the materials in the landfill. This brings me to my overall opinion on this technology. If EFW technology can produce energy from waste while AT LEAST “breaking even” on the amount of greenhouse gases derived from the waste material, then I see it as a viable alternate form of energy generation. Couple this with the added value of reducing the amount of material sitting in landfills and the benefits may extend even further. Since this technology helps to displace our reliance on old technology such as coal-fired power, I tend to favour it. Wikipedia also has a Pros versus Cons section regarding EFW technology and I suggest you read it when making up your own mind on the subject.
Response 1:
• 1 JudgeWinchester // Nov 1, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Dioxins sounds icky!

Response 2:
• 2 admin // Nov 2, 2007 at 7:55 am
Judge - They really are icky. They are a highly persistent environmental contaminants. They are also actively taken up by fish and lead to consumption advisories for fish. There are also dioxin-like PCBs, which are PCBs that act similarly to Dioxins in their toxic mechanism. Nasty stuff indeed..
Thanks for the comment Judge.

Response 3 by P. Schmidt-Pathmann:

Dioxins are no longer a problem - the largest problem are the people opposing the right technology as well as the people proposing the wrong technology.
Wrong: Gasification, Pyrolysis, Plasma arc (Exotics) etc. - claim they work but evidence strongly supports the opposite.
What works is Advanced Thermal Recycling - only technology supported by the German Green Party.
Sounds like I am biased - well I urge you to take a look at my website ... I have a long working experience and a very good relationship with the German Green Party and just about all mentions worthy environmental organizations in Germany (as they are the world leader in waste management - over 65% recycling of household waste and 99% of construction and demolition waste). Germany is at least 20 years ahead of the US and Canada in their research, understanding of the problem and what alternatives we have as well as their policy.
Please consider that since switching from LANDFILLS to alternatives in waste management (largely waste to energy/thermal recycling or plain old incineration - it depends on the backend... how you clean your emissions) - Germany will not only be one of only two countries to reach its Kyoto objectives but also has had higher reductions in Greenhouse Gases than all other renewables (nearly 25,000 windmills over 1.5 GW of solar, geothermal, switching to more efficient light bulbs etc) combined!!!
I recently read a statement that said ..."the better the flue gas cleaning the more toxic the ash"... and that is a good thing as long as you don't mix the fly/boiler and the bottom ash as the bottom ash is very usable (non-toxic and safe). When you mix the fly and/or boiler ash with the bottom ash becomes toxic as well and thus more or less useless. It sounds to me that rather than spreading all those toxics over a large area in a landfill (untreated) it is nice to be able to safely capture them in relatively small amounts (less than 2% of input waste) and be able to maintain the stuff properly or even make it benign in concrete or clay!
So many people have so much to learn - and I apologize if I come across as arrogant or whatever you might call it but I trust the experts and the science used by these experts rather than making uneducated speculations.
Check out www.wrsi.info as you will find a lot of info there and note ... if someone today would tell you that in 20 years we will fly in an airplane (before the first flight took place) - you would probably not believe it but if someone would tell you that in another country they are flying very successfully wouldn't you be curious?
The utopian idea is as follows - one day all metals will be replaced by plastics from renewable sources and after they outlive their use they will be turned into energy to satisfy our energy needs - and this will be done CO2 neutral - i.e. Eco-power plants.
We got a long way to go but to continue to waste a resource in a landfill (and later harvest - if someone actually should be that stupid - would be very toxic!) is the dumbest of all ideas and that is exactly what will happen/is happening as people oppose proven clean concepts.
We should look at ourselves and wonder why we continue to produce 1/4 of the worlds Greenhouse Gases - probably because we listen to the wrong people or simply don't understand the concept ... it's time to step outside the box and start realizing that the current way does not work. And for everyone who is offended by this ... remind yourself: 1/4 of the worlds GHGs produced by the US!!!!
All waste can not be avoided or recycled as that would produce much higher GHGs and toxic pollution than other more logical solutions i.e. Advanced Thermal Recycling!
We need to start at the source ... the average American produces 4 times the amount of waste as the average German! Next we have to look at our business practices - we should not allow plastics on the market that can not be reused as we need to move away from oil based products.

Note: I am not trying to offend anyone but please remember - we all live on the same planet and no one is better than the other! Selfishness and uneducation as well as ignorance just make things worth.
It's time to wake up and get busy as we might not have much longer (at least not at the rate we are currently going).
Think before you speak - think before you act!
I wish us all that we do something soon - for the sake of our children and the human race - and as cheese as that might sound ... it is in the end the truth!
PSP

A Response to EFW Incineration post…
November 5th, 2007 • 1 Comment
I recently received a rather unexpected response to my post entitled Energy from Waste (EFW) Incineration - What’s the deal? It was not the response in general that was unexpected, but rather the amount of time and effort that seemed to have been put into the response (which I highly appreciate). I urge you all to read the response.
I’d like to start off by thanking P Schmidt-Pathmann for writing such an informative and stimulating response to this topic. The fact that my post was able to stimulate you to write such insightful content brightens my day. The response stated early on that “…the largest problem is the people opposing the right technology as well as the people proposing the wrong technology.” I do agree with this statement, particularly where the automotive industry is concerned, but that’s a story for another day. I am not sure whether your “selfishness and uneducation” comment was directed at me or at society in general, but nonetheless you make a valid point. What is often the beauty of the blogging world can also come back to bite us, since no matter what one writes, there will always be people far more versed in the subject reading the posts. This topic is, I openly admin, a relatively new one to me, and I do still have a great deal to learn. This is the beauty of the blogosphere. One person can initiate a conversation that may be incomplete in its factual content, yet the subsequent commenting and conversations stemming from that post can lead to a highly educational summary of what is known about a given subject.
P Schmidt-Pathmann makes an interesting point in regarding the beenfits of Thermal Recycling by stating that “…rather than spreading all those toxics over a large area in a landfill (untreated) it is nice to be able to safely capture them in relatively small amounts (less than 2% of input waste) and be able to maintain the stuff properly or even make it benign in concrete or clay!”. I was not aware that the difference in waste output was reduced from the input to such an extent, and knowing this does change my view somewhat, but not completely. I believe that it needs to be mentioned that one cannot simply eliminate matter entirely. These things will not simply disappear, never to return. Perhaps the mass of waste is indeed 2% of what was fed into the system; however, that 2% would be, in my opinion, like concentrating 100 pounds of acid into 2 pounds of dust. It results in a more manageable, less space consuming end product, but in the end, it is still here, and may still have the potential to do harm, albeit in a much delayed fashion. I do not mean to sound pessimistic or to appear to be knocking technology, because I am a HUGE fan of it (it’s the purpose of this blog), but I am also an advocate of reality, and I believe that all angles should be presented openly, good, bad, or ugly.
So long as there is as much energy (human energy) being spent on making sure the “dust” is properly managed and stored as is being spent on marketing the technology, then I am sold only on the potential of this technology to DELAY or SLOW our negative influence on the planet. I am a firm believer that we should not instil ultimate confidence in technology to save our planet. Our societies have, too many times in the past, been fooled by our own confidence in technology. My opinion remains that the best way to reduce the amount of materials going into a landfill is to not throw them out in the first place. Efficiency with what we already have is, in my opinion, the largest untapped source of energy on earth. The problem, I’ll admit, is that we have done a poor job of doing our part on an individual level. For this reason, technology, is keeping us afloat while we struggle to change the way we live. If one carbon neutral Thermal Recycling plant can offset the laziness of a few thousand citizens, then I believe it is a valid option, but I tend to find fault in the way some people market various technologies as being “completely clean”, “emission free” and so on. The more we try to convince society that there are technological innovations that are saving our planet, the less they will feel the need to recycle their junk. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Einstein stated that “energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another”, and I believe this statement is highly relevant to our current situation. One cannot simply burn up trash and say that it is now 2% of what it was, it isn’t that simple. If we remove 95% of the toxic by-products from the stack, this doesn’t mean that they are gone; it means they are now sitting in tailings ponds somewhere, concentrated, biding their time until they are able to once again exert detrimental influence on the environment. Whether a small storage pond full of highly toxic material is better than a large landfill full of potentially toxic materials is “better” I will leave to more versed individuals than myself to address.
The bottom line is that we need to reduce emissions NOW, and waste-to-energy technology will and IS helping to reach this goal (Please read P Schmidt-Pathmann’s comment to see how effective Germany has been in reducing their emissions through this method). But the reality is that we are choosing the worst problem to fix, while ignoring others that we may be enhancing by our narrow focus. Granted, global warming is by far the worst of our problems, and I do agree that we need to fix this issue first. If global temperatures rise to the level some experts predict, toxic waste tailings ponds will be the least of our worries.
We are a society driven by economics and profit margins, and unfortunately, renewable energy and green living are no exception to this. Technology is, and will continue to play a vital role in reducing our impact on the planet, offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, reducing our footprint by converting landfill waste to energy, and generally providing us with more time to get our act together and start living greener. Ultimately, however it remains up to us, on an individual level, to make the decision to better our environment. I will end with a quote from P Schmidt-Pathmann’s response, with which I couldn’t agree more;
…we all live on the same planet and no one is better than the other! Selfishness and uneducation as well as ignorance just make things [worse].
It’s time to wake up and get busy as we might not have much longer (at least not at the rate we are currently going).
Think before you speak - think before you act!
I wish us all that we do something soon - for the sake of our children and the human race - and as cheese as that might sound … it is in the end the truth!
Thanks again for a great response P Schmidt-Pathmann, and I hope THIS response will stimulate comments from many points of view.

Tags: Emissions • Green Power • waste reduction
1 response so far ↓
• 1 P Schmidt-Pathmann // Nov 5, 2007 at 3:00 pm
It is a pleasure taking part in this conversation. Thank you for your acknowledgement. I spent the time on the response as I see the urgency to understand our current situation. I fully agree with you that not having pollution of any form in the end will be ideal. I fully support that. What many years of research have thought me though is that the magic solution does not exist. Even if we recycle everything as that will in enough cases add negatively to the environment as well. How you ask - through the amounts of energy used to recycle and the often toxic substances used in the process. We should focus our energy on producing products that are made from substances that are renewable as well as non-toxic.
I want to assure you that I was not referring to you but to society in general. Not to go into detail regarding the automotive industry … I fully agree that there is lot’s to be done - and the faster the better. But when involving “egos” nothing is fast.
With the 2% I was referring to the fly/boiler ash that in Germany is utilized to stabilize salt mines by mixing the ash into concrete. Under German law this means it is recycled. Well it would be nice not to have the product at all but knowing that it can safely be disposed of is acceptable for now.
All in all other materials besides the fly/boiler ash and energy there are also the non-ferrous and ferrous metals that are recovered at over 95% (highest in the industry), gypsum (of higher purity than natural occurring gypsum) - for use in wallboards etc, HCL @ 30% - competes just like the gypsum on the open market and the non-toxic bottom ash that can (and in Germany often is) used in the construction of streets etc.
There are no “ponds” of toxins from this process - and that is a fact - it is proven. What is much more important is that compare to landfilling - who will produce many many pools of toxins underground and above ground - and that refers to any landfills with untreated waste - as non are safe in the long run. Maybe landfills don’t leak in the lifetime or work life of the engineer that claims they are safe but for the following generations.
Please note that there are virtually no or as the German Green Party etc. state - only Negliable amounts of any toxins - in the flue gases. Over 99% safe - sure we can argue about the remaining 1% but I think it makes more sense to focus this energy on other industries that pollute tremendously.
I could not agree more that it is up to the individual to make the right choice - but most individuals just follow what they learn from another marketing campaign - from the TV or advertisements. We need to change things a whole lot more a whole lot faster and the question remains - whom or what can we trust. And I think that is often why we get stuck in a rut and oppose what might work and in turn support the opposite what we did not want to support either yet take it as the lesser (so we at least think) evil.
I took my time to respond to this Blog as I hope just as its creator to stimulate thought but even though I could be from the wrong side - I ensure you that I am interested in the greater good of us all and have put my whole heart into this. I have the support of many scientists and as well as environmentalists. It is about understanding the issue and doing something about it rather than opposing everything.
It is sad but a very ironic phrase - BANANA - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone!
Well that does not work - as we have to shut down everything and if you take Europe as an example many of the proven to be safe WTE/Advanced Thermal Recycling facilities are located in the center of cities, near housing and business districts - in some cases even near some of the wealthiest housing such as in Copenhagen as it delivers valuable hot water/heat.
Much to learn but please: Think before you speak - think before you act!
Again look at the website www.wrsi.info and feel free to contact me.
Humbly,
PSP

• Chris // Nov 6, 2007 at 8:36 am
Hi P Schmidt-Pathmann
Thanks again for another highly informative response. Thermal recycling technology is “growing on me” quite rapidly as I learn more about the successes of this technology (mostly from your comments and website). I thank you very much for providing some great information. My blog has benefited greatly from your comments and I do hope many more visitors check out your comments. Please feel free to contribute to my site any time, I welcome your input on any subject that I might discuss here.
Thanks again!
Chris