Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

pachamama.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 193 posts

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#13

Post by dmentat »

petercooper wrote: post #9
alex_doom wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh they burn it? I though they were doing that bacteria to methane idea?

I don't know about the Swedish one but the Norwegian one in the other linked article says: Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage — household trash, industrial waste, even toxic and dangerous waste from hospitals and drug arrests — has a problem: it has literally run out of garbage to burn. So it seems so, yeah :-(

I live in a Swedish city, and I recently visited the local "garbage burning" power plant. It's not like the trash is just burned and the fumes released into the atmosphere, they pass through like 10-15 different types of filters removing and recycling different particles. The fumes that finally are released supposedly have a very negligible environmental impact. I'd link you some sources, but I got this information first-hand from the plant engineers, not sure where to look.

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#16

Post by saltvedt »

My home municipality on the west coast of Norway sends their waste to Sweden to be burned. Before we did that, all households had to sort the waste into separate bins for plastic and organic waste. The organic waste were turned into compost locally. It changed because Miljøverndepartementet (Ministry of Environmental Protection) changed the regulations for depositing plastic waste. So many municipalities have trucks going "over the mountain" with waste to Sweden to be burned. And we actually have the ability to burn waste for energy here on the west coast of Norway, but I guess simply sending it to Sweden is cheaper. And it actually isn't quite as bad as it sounds like because many trucks also deliver manufactured goods from Sweden and would have return empty.

I have no idea what the net environmental benefit is (or if it even is positive (or if anyone really knows)).

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#17

Post by lutorm »

memnips wrote: post #12

For a different perspective I found this older article which ponders the economic impact of forcing 9 million people to spend time and energy sorting their trash: http://mises.org/daily/2855

... an article which of course assumes that the costs of the (not spelled out) alternatives are zero...

My parents do this and it's not like it's very onerous.

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#18

Post by wf »

rquantz wrote: post #4
tlongren wrote: post #2

Ames, Iowa, home of Iowa State University, does something similar. All of their trash gets burned to generate electricity for the city. Seems to work quite well for them, been doing it for probably 30 or 40 years, now.

How do they produce safe emissions from trash? They have a hard enough time when burning something where they control the input.

I don't think they do; however, it seems to be possible.[1] Googling "batch oxidation" gives back this PDF[2] describing it. Answering your question again:

"Unlike incinerators and other thermal processes, the BOS™ does not use a high temperature, turbulent processes to reduce the waste. The “quiet”, non‐turbulent smouldering of waste during the gasification phase means that the production of fly‐ash is almost eliminated, and the process does not suffer from temperature peaks and troughs, thus reducing problems with the formation of NOx and dioxins. However, many waste materials contain chemical components which can cause problems in any thermal process. Acid gases and metals must be neutralised and or / removed, and dioxins, furans, and particulates must all be reduced to minute amounts in order to meet the stringent EU legislation and compliance requirements. BOS™ achieves this by the use of a comprehensive Flue Gas Treatment (FGT) system through a dedicated Best Available Technology (BAT) program. The injection of sodium bicarbonate and activated carbon in a powdered form neutralises the acid gases and absorbs heavy metals and dioxins. Urea, injected into the Secondary Combustion Chamber, reduces NOx levels dramatically, and a bag-house filter system removes any last traces of particulate before the exhaust goes to atmosphere."

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/business/energy-environmen...

[2]http://wtecanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/WtEC-BOS-Web...

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#20

Post by yxhuvud »

rquantz wrote: post #4
tlongren wrote: post #2

Ames, Iowa, home of Iowa State University, does something similar. All of their trash gets burned to generate electricity for the city. Seems to work quite well for them, been doing it for probably 30 or 40 years, now.

How do they produce safe emissions from trash? They have a hard enough time when burning something where they control the input.

Burn it hot enough and emissions turn out mostly ok.
Post reply on HN