Comparison of waste-to-energy technologies of gasification and incineration using life cycle assessment: Case studies in Finland, France and China

Abstract

Waste-to-Energy (WtE) has gradually constituted one of the most important options to achieve energy recovery from municipal solid waste (MSW). However, the environmental sustainability of a specific WtE system varies with used technologies and geographic differences. As a result, three representative WtE systems are compared using life cycle assessment (LCA): a gasification-based WtE plant in Finland, mechanical-grate incineration in France, and circulating fluidized bed incineration in China. Results show that the overall environmental performance of the gasification system is better than incineration. The use of gasification technology, attributed to an intermediate syngas purification step, can provide benefits of both reducing the stack emissions and increasing the energy efficiency. Regional waste management, especially related to MSW caloric value and emission regulation, are determining factors for a preferable performance of the incineration in France over that in China. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses further address key variations such as choice of MSW composition, basis of displaced electricity, energy recovery mode, and application of "best-available technology" dedicated to incineration. It is found that the most sensitive parameters influencing the LCA results are: electricity recovery, CO 2 emission, and NO x emission. In the future, use of the source-separated high caloric waste combined with a more stringent emission standard can efficiently improve MSW incineration in China. Bottom ash recycling for metals and materials is highly applicable regarding incineration in France. This presented study can overall contribute to the development of specific WtE technology and local waste management plan for decision-makers.

The Actual Impact of Waste-to-Energy Plant Emissions on Air Quality: A Case Study From Northern Italy

“…Public perception of a plant's impact on air quality can be profitably shaped by studies comparing the contribution of WTE plants to local air pollution with that of other common sources such as traffic, domestic heating or biomass burning, which are publicly perceived as less detrimental to human health yet which may contribute significantly to ambient concentration levels locally. However, such studies are extremely rare in the literature, where comparative studies are usually limited to comparisons of emission inventory data (thus ignoring flue gases released into the atmosphere) or to comparisons with alternative solutions to WTE plants, mostly based on the life-cycle assessment approach (Evangelisti et al, 2015;Dong et al, 2018).…”

Fluidised Bed Reactors for the Thermochemical Conversion of Biomass and Waste

“…There has been a progressive increase in the number of combustion plants in different parts of the world: in Europe 455 plants were in operation in 2012 (Lausselet et al, 2016), whereas the number in China has risen from 54 plants in 2004 to 188 in 2014 (Dong et al, 2018a). Even though the last generation of MSW combustors employs effective and advanced flue gas cleaning, ash recycling and the use of combined heat and power (CHP) cycle, there are still some limitations concerning electricity efficiency-which is low at about 22-25 % (Dong et al, 2018b;Panepinto et al 2014). This is due to a restriction on the maximum steam temperature of the boiler, which is typically kept below 450 °C to avoid corrosion by HCl (Belgiorno et al, 2003).…”

“…A large-scale CHP gasification plant using a fluidised bed reactor is located at Lathi, Finland. It was developed by Foster Wheeler and has been operational since 2012 (Dong et al, 2018b). It has a capacity of 250,000 tpa of waste feedstock unsuitable for recycling, in the form of SRF.…”

Multi-Criteria Analysis of Waste-to-Energy Technologies in Developed and Developing Countries

“…Incineration is currently the most mature as well as most used form of WTE technology in the world (Dong, 2018). This is predominantly due to the lower costs that are associated with the technology.…”

“…Although these are some limitations compared with an incineration facility, beneficial offsets still include clean fuels produced in the back-end of the catalytic process and the recovery of recyclables such as metals in the up-front sorting process (Al-Salem et al, 2017). Based on a life cycle assessment comparison in Finland of WTE technologies for a gasification plant and a mechanical-grate incinerator, gasification was shown to be the more environmentally-friendly option (Dong et al, 2018). This was mainly because of the reduction in emissions.…”