scholarly journals Waste to energy

2014 ◽  
Vol 126 (2) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Sanderson

Rising energy costs, increasing landfill prices and the environmental imperative to reduce atmospheric emissions of fossil CO2 are all compelling medium and large energy users throughout Australia to consider decentralised onsite power generation options. In addition to the rollout of household and community-scale photovoltaic (PV) and wind, waste-to-energy technologies such as landfill gas and biogas-based power plant are now well established in Australia. However, various other waste-to-energy technologies, operating elsewhere, have yet to take off. This presentation provided an overview of waste to- energy processes, including examples of currently operating commercial processes as well as recent research to highlight the interesting mix of processes and economics that make up the waste-to-energy landscape.

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 165 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Vourdoubas ◽  
Vasiliki K. Skoulou

<p>The landfill gas (LFG) produced from the existing landfill site in Heraklion city, Crete island, Greece, is not currently exploited to its full potential. It could however be exploited for power generation and/or combined heat and power (CHP) production in near future by fully unlocking its energy production potential of the gas generated from the landfill site. This gas (LFG) could feed a 1.6 MW<sub>el</sub> power plant corresponding to the 0.42% of the annually consumed electricity in Crete. The LFG utilization for power generation and CHP production has been studied, and the economics of three energy production scenarios have been calculated. An initial capital investment of 2.4 to 3.2 M €, with payback times (PBT) of approximately 3.5 to 6 years and Net Present Values (NPV) ranging between 2 to 6 M € have been calculated. These values prove the profitability of the attempt of bioenergy production from the biogas produced from the existing landfill site in Heraklion city, Crete. Based on the current economic situation of the country, any similar initiative could positively contribute to strengthening the economy of local community and as a result the country, offering several other socioeconomic benefits like e.g. waste minimization, creation of new job positions etc. by increasing, at the same time, the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) share in energy production sector etc. Apart from the favorable economics of the proposed waste to energy production scheme, all the additional environmental and social benefits make the attempt of a near future exploitation of the landfill gas produced in Heraklion, an attractive short term alternative for waste to bio-energy production.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 73 ◽  
pp. 189-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony C. Elwell ◽  
Nada H. Elsayed ◽  
John N. Kuhn ◽  
Babu Joseph

Author(s):  
P Freund

Concerns about potentially dangerous changes in climate as a result of rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are leading to restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas. The main source of CO2 emissions is fossil fuel combustion; power generation is the single largest contributor. Coal is widely used for power generation, but it releases approximately twice as much CO2 compared with the use of natural gas for each unit of electricity sent out. Emission reduction could be achieved by increasing the efficiency with which coal is burnt, or by switching to another fuel. These measures can achieve significant reductions in emissions, but, for deep reductions, more substantial changes would be required in the power plant. The technology for capture and storage of CO2 has been recognized in recent years as providing a means of cutting emissions from fossil fuel combustion by at least 80 per cent. Capture and storage is based on technology already in use for other purposes, so there is limited need for development, and the risk of application will be less than is typical for novel energy technologies. Hence, this seems to be a technology that could be deployed relatively rapidly to reduce emissions from fossil fuel fired plant. In this paper, the technology for capture and storage of CO2 will be reviewed, especially the costs and potential capacity for reducing emissions. Some barriers to implementation are identified, and work necessary to overcome them is discussed.


Author(s):  
Kafayat Olafunke Adeyemi ◽  
Urbans Benywanira

Municipal solid waste (MSW) is an energy source that should not go untapped or unutilized. The waste must be properly utilized through combustion, anaerobic digestion, and landfill gas acquisition, as it represents material and energy content. This will reduce the effects of global warming, which is as a result of high concentration of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), in the atmosphere. This chapter focuses on the technologies for solid waste management and the thermodynamics involved in the process for sustainable and cleaner energy. The equations presented represent the thermal efficiency, conversion efficiencies, as well as possible work that can be derived from a power plant utilizing MSW as fuel. It is important that countries in Sub-Saharan Africa vigorously pursue sustainable waste management technologies, especially recycling and landfilling, while exploring and investing in waste-to-energy technologies that will perform optimally using the composition of the waste in Sub-Saharan Africa in the design of the waste-to-energy technology.


Processes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong ◽  
Bashir ◽  
Ng ◽  
Sethupathi ◽  
Lim ◽  
...  

As Malaysia is a fast-developing country, its prospects of sustainable energy generation are at the center of debate. Malaysian municipal solid waste (MSW) is projected to have a 3.3% increase in annual generation rate at the same time an increase of 3.3% for electricity demand. In Malaysia, most of the landfills are open dumpsite and 89% of the collected MSW end up in landfills. Furthermore, huge attention is being focused on converting MSW into energy due to the enormous amount of daily MSW being generated. Sanitary landfill to capture methane from waste landfill gas (LFG) and incineration in a combined heat and power plant (CHP) are common MSW-to-energy technologies in Malaysia. MSW in Malaysia contains 45% organic fraction thus landfill contributes as a potential LFG source. Waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies in treating MSW potentially provide an attractive economic investment since its feedstock (MSW) is collected almost for free. At present, there are considerable issues in WTE technologies although the technology employing MSW as feedstock are well established, for instance the fluctuation of MSW composition and the complexity in treatment facilities with its pollutant emissions. Thus, this study discusses various WTE technologies in Malaysia by considering the energy potentials from all existing incineration plants and landfill sites as an effective MSW management in Malaysia. Furthermore, to promote local innovation and technology development and to ensure successful long-term sustainable economic viability, social inclusiveness, and environmental sustainability in Malaysia, the four faculties of sustainable development namely technical, economic, environmental, and social issues affiliated with MSW-to-Energy technologies were compared and evaluated.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stergios Vakalis ◽  
Konstantinos Moustakas

The assessment of novel waste-to-energy technologies has several drawbacks due to the nature of the R1 formula. The 3T method, which aims to cover this gap, combines thermodynamic parameters in a radar graph and the overall efficiency is calculated from the area of the trapezoid. The present study expands the application of the 3T method in order to make it suitable for utilization in other energy-from-waste technologies. In the framework of this study, a 3T specialized solution is developed for the case of landfilling plus landfill gas recovery, with the potential inclusion of landfill mining. Numerical applications have been performed for waste-to-energy and landfilling by using both the R1 formula and the 3T method. The model Land GEM was used for the calculation of the total landfill gas. The Combined Heat and Power (CHP) efficiency of the landfill gas CHP efficiency was 16.6%–33.1%, and for the waste-to-energy plant, the CHP efficiency was over 70%. The full range of parameters, like metal recovery and quality of CHP, were not fully reflected by the R1 formula, which returned values of 1.07 for waste-to-energy and from 0.37 to 0.63 for different landfilling scenarios. Contrary to that, the 3T method calculated values between 0.091 and 0.307 for the waste-to-energy plant and values between 0.011 and 0.121 for the various landfilling scenarios. The 3T method is able to account for the recovery of materials like metals and assess the quality of the output flows. The 3T method was able to successfully provide a solution for the case of landfilling plus landfill gas recovery, with the potential inclusion of landfill mining, and directly compares the results with the conventional case of waste-to-energy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 768-779
Author(s):  
Natarajan Narayanan ◽  
Vasudevan Mangottiri ◽  
Kiruba Narayanan

Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) offer a sustainable solution for alternative energy production by employing microorganisms as catalysts for direct conversion of chemical energy of feedstock into electricity. Electricity from urine (urine-tricity) using MFCs is a promising cost-effective technology capable of serving multipurpose benefits - generation of electricity, waste alleviation, resource recovery and disinfection. As an abundant waste product from human and animal origin with high nutritional values, urine is considered to be a potential source for extraction of alternative energy in the coming days. However, developments to improve power generation from urine-fed MFCs at reasonable scales still face many challenges such as non-availability of sustainable materials, cathodic limitations, and low power density. The aim of this paper was to critically evaluate the state-of-the-art research and developments in urine-fed MFCs over the past decade (2008-2018) in terms of their construction (material selection and configuration), modes of operation (batch, continuous, cascade, etc.) and performance (power generation, nutrient recovery and waste treatment). This review identifies the preference for sources of urine for MFC application from human beings, cows and elephants. Among these, human urine-fed MFCs offer a variety of applications to practice in the real-world scenario. One key observation is that, effective disinfection can be achieved by optimizing the operating conditions and MFC configurations without compromising on performance. In essence, this review demarcates the scope of enhancing the reuse potential of urine for renewable energy generation and simultaneously achieving resource recovery.


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