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Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

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

#41

Post by aetherson »

These articles about "running out of garbage" make it sound like a great thing, but it seems to me that it's a big disadvantage of any kind of waste-to-energy scheme. I mean, the concept is that you spend a ton of money making these power generation facilities that do waste-to-energy, and then that cost is partially defrayed by selling the energy.

But if you don't actually have enough garbage to run the facility, then it is that much less cost-efficient. It implies that something has gone badly wrong. Why did you build so many facilities?

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

#43

Post by Swannie »

alipang wrote: post #3

Better article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/world/europe/oslo-copes-wi...

But completely unrelated.

I agree, it is a better article. But the OP is about Sweden, and reads as a poorly executed "Us too" press release. Your article is about a similar (but slightly different) problem in Norway. Hence my down vote.

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

#44

Post by anonymous »

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

I find sorting garbage to be better and cleaner for me, personally, actually. You don't have one large festering heap in your home, you have three heaps and only one of them actually smells. The rest are used up plastic containers, bottles, paper, etc. - materials that don't decompose on their own. You get to throw all the biological waste in one place, which can be smaller than the rest and you can clean it up every other day. You can of course throw all your trash away every other day, but it's easier when you only have to throw away only a small portion of it.

I currently live in a city that doesn't collect trash separately and I still separate my trash - it's just nicer and cleaner.

The marketing budget needed to convince people to transition to the new model will pay itself off shortly. Consider also that you'll get unpaid "split-trash evangelists" in most neighbourhoods doing your work for you.

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

#45

Post by return0 »

aetherson wrote: post #41

These articles about "running out of garbage" make it sound like a great thing, but it seems to me that it's a big disadvantage of any kind of waste-to-energy scheme. I mean, the concept is that you spend a ton of money making these power generation facilities that do waste-to-energy, and then that cost is partially defrayed by selling the energy. But if you don't actually have enough garbage to run the facility, the…

I wonder if they even cost much, after all a furnace is not some terribly new technology. In Copenhagen they seem to have excess money to turn it into a giant smoking ski slope: http://www.archdaily.com/339893/bigs-waste-to-energy-plant-b...

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

#46

Post by gvr »

My dad's condo [edit: condo complex] in Sweden has 10+ different trash cans. You divide your trash into individuals cans for batteries, bulbs, cardboard, paper, compostables, and so forth.

I don't know but I assume that part of the reason that Swedes are able to deal effectively with the trash is that they sort it properly at the source, so that they more easily can process it.

When I read stuff like this it honestly makes me homesick. I've lived half my life on the left side of the political spectrum (Sweden/France) and the other half on the right side here in the US. I love it in SF, but this supposedly "progressive" city has - especially considering how many smart people that live here - an appallingly poor understanding of how to architect a civilized society.

There is no reason this city shouldn't be clean, essentially free of homeless (and sometimes insane) people, have great public roads, excellent public transportation, low crime, worry about more interesting things than what size diamond ring Kanye bought for his lady, and so forth.

There is a good data driven TED talk on how points like the above correlate with wealth and equality: http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

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

#47

Post by Dewie »

batiste wrote: post #21

How is that economically/environmentally sound to import garbage? Garbage should be burned locally to avoid extra pollution.

Sweden is pretty spacious anyway. I could imagine that tightly packed countries in Western Europe could want to alleviate some of that garbage by sending it to be burned in some remote place in Northern Sweden, for example.

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

#48

Post by Swannie »

wf wrote: post #18
rquantz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 elimin…

Phrases like "... a dedicated Best Available Technology (BAT) program." give me cause for concern.

It amounts to "we're not provably worse than any of the other technologies that have been adopted"... aka it's far from the best available, which I'm sure is cost prohibitive.

That aside, I do have a lot of respect for the work that goes into this sort of chemical engineering - absolutely fascinating stuff.

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

#49

Post by chestnut-tree »

petercooper wrote: post #5
alipang wrote: post #3

Better article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/world/europe/oslo-copes-wi...

This is a naïve but genuine question.. is shipping trash from the UK to Norway and then setting it on fire better for the environment than burying it? (Or, at the very least, is it better to burn trash than to extract and burn something else?)

"is shipping trash from the UK to Norway and then setting it on fire better for the environment than burying it?"

Definitely! Landfill takes up a lot of space. Yes, it's buried underground, but there is a risk that harmful toxins or chemicals can leak into the soil. Landfill gases can leak into the air. A lot of that rubbish will not decompose.

The UK has a landfill tax to discourage excess waste, but unlike Sweden and Norway, we have not come up with clever, forward-thinking solutions to tackle the problem.

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

#50

Post by aetherson »

return0 wrote: post #45
aetherson wrote: post #41

These articles about "running out of garbage" make it sound like a great thing, but it seems to me that it's a big disadvantage of any kind of waste-to-energy scheme. I mean, the concept is that you spend a ton of money making these power generation facilities that do waste-to-energy, and then that cost is partially defrayed by selling the energy. But if you don't actually have enough garbage to run the facility, the…

I wonder if they even cost much, after all a furnace is not some terribly new technology. In Copenhagen they seem to have excess money to turn it into a giant smoking ski slope: http://www.archdaily.com/339893/bigs-waste-to-energy-plant-b...

A brief web search didn't come up with any cost estimates of the Swedish facilities, but this page lists the cost of a singaporean one at about $500 million.

http://www.keppelseghers.com/en/content.aspx?sid=3028

It's possible that that's drastically different than the Swedish ones, but I fundamentally do not believe that any power generation facility is a terribly cheap facility to build or maintain. If you do, I suggest that that is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.

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