Assessment of the greenhouse effect impact of technologies used for energy recovery from municipal waste: A case for England

This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/44930/ Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the Strathprints administrator: strathprints@strath.ac.ukThe Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output. Waste management has become a great social concern for modern societies. Landfill emissions have been identified among the major contributors of global warming and climate changes with significant impact in national economies. The energy industry constitutes an additional greenhouse gas emitter, while at the same time it is characterized by significant costs and uncertain fuel prices. The above implications have triggered different policies and measures worldwide to address the management of municipal solid wastes on the one hand and the impacts from energy production on the other. Emerging methods of energy recovery from waste may address both concerns simultaneously. In this work a comparative study of co-generation investments based on municipal solid waste is presented, focusing on the evolution of their economical performance over time. A real-options algorithm has been adopted investigating different options of energy recovery from waste: incineration, gasification and landfill biogas exploitation. The financial contributors are identified and the impact of greenhouse gas trading is analysed in terms of financial yields, considering landfilling as the baseline scenario. The results indicate an advantage of combined heat and power over solely electricity production. Gasification, has failed in some European installations. Incineration on the other hand, proves to be more attractive than the competing alternatives, mainly due to its higher power production efficiency, lower investment costs and lower emission rates. Although these characteristics may not drastically change over time, either immediate or irreversible investment decisions might be reconsidered under the current selling prices of heat, power and CO 2 allowances.

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“…When CHP is the case, the residual heat is recovered for district heating, hot water supply, etc. (Papageorgiou et al, 2009). …”

Section: Literature Review the Competing Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electricity and combined heat and power from municipal solid waste; theoretically optimal investment decision time and emissions trading implications

et al. 2010

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“…Globally, 1.3 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) were generated in 2011, and it is expected to increase to 2.2 billion tonnes by 2025 (Levis et al, 2013;Vergara and Tchobanoglous, 2012). Waste management activities account for approximately 4% of the global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), particularly from the release of methane from organic waste decomposition in landfills (Papageorgiou et al, 2009;Vergara and Tchobanoglous, 2012). It is estimated that in the UK, MSW management produces 175 kg carbon dioxide equivalents per tonne waste (Mühle et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greenhouse gas emissions of waste management processes and options: A case study

Barrera

Hooda

2016

Waste Manag Res

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Increasing concern about climate change is prompting organisations to mitigate their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Waste management activities also contribute to GHG emissions. In the waste management sector, there has been an increasing diversion of waste sent to landfill, with much emphasis on recycling and reuse to prevent emissions. This study evaluates the carbon footprint of the different processes involved in waste management systems, considering the entire waste management stream. Waste management data from the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK), London (UK), was used to estimate the carbon footprint for its (RBK) current source segregation system. Secondly, modelled full and partial co-mingling scenarios were used to estimate carbon emissions from these proposed waste management approaches. The GHG emissions from the entire waste management system at RBK were 12,347 tonnes CO2e for the source segregated (SS) scenario, and 11,907 tonnes CO2e for the partial comingled (PC) model. These emissions amount to 203.26 kg CO2e/tonne and 196.02 kg CO2e/tonne MSW for SS and PC, respectively. The change from a source segregation fleet to a partial co-mingling fleet reduced the emissions, at least partly due to a change in the number and type of vehicles.

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“…Composting and anaerobic digestion were the two best options, with composting being carbon neutral and digestion being carbon negative (Barton et al, 2008). Though there is still uncertainty about whether MSW incineration creates a carbon source or a carbon sink, the objective point is that the MSW incinerations with electricity/heat recovery and management improvement (e.g., source separation and mechanical-biological pretreatment) could potentially operate as carbon sinks; otherwise, incinerations of the mixed waste with high moisture content or without electricity/heat recovery could be carbon sources (Papageorgiou et al, 2009;He et al, 2011;Kuo et al, 2011). The carbon cycling will be different from that of MSWM systems, which have a different level of technology, facilities, governance and management of MSW collection (with or without source separation), routine and distance of MSW transportation, material recycling and energy recovery, etc.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling the carbon cycle of the municipal solid waste management system for urban metabolism

Zhou

Huang

Cao

et al. 2015

Ecological Modelling

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a b s t r a c tMunicipal solid waste management is one of the key subsystems of urban metabolism, which significantly impacts urban carbon cycles. A conceptual model for analyzing the carbon cycle of the municipal solid waste management system was established based on the theory of urban metabolism with regard to urban carbon cycling. The model includes horizontal fluxes, vertical fluxes and carbon stocks of the waste managing processes such as waste collection, transportation, treatment and disposal. The current carbon cycling of the municipal solid waste management system and two other scenarios were analyzed using a Jingmen City case study. The results indicate that the input horizontal flux in municipal solid waste between 1989 and 2004 was 293.47 Gg. Among all of the considered scenarios, the landfill formed the largest carbon stocks; incineration showed the largest vertical fluxes of carbon dioxide, and source separation and integrated technologies decreased carbon emissions by adding new carbon sources to the urban system. Improving municipal solid waste management using techniques, such as waste minimization, source separation, recycling, technical innovations of incineration, compost and digestion of organic waste, landfill mining, etc., could impact the urban carbon cycle by reducing carbon emissions.

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Assessment of the greenhouse effect impact of technologies used for energy recovery from municipal waste: A case for England

Cited by 95 publications

References 10 publications

Electricity and combined heat and power from municipal solid waste; theoretically optimal investment decision time and emissions trading implications

Electricity and combined heat and power from municipal solid waste; theoretically optimal investment decision time and emissions trading implications

Greenhouse gas emissions of waste management processes and options: A case study

Modeling the carbon cycle of the municipal solid waste management system for urban metabolism

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