In March 2008, Keppel Seghers started the engineering, supply, construction and commissioning of a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Waste-to-Energy (WtE) plant in Åmotfors (Sweden). When completed in 2010 the plant will process close to 74,000 tons per year of household waste (average LHV = 10.5 MJ/kg) and limited quantities of (demolition) wood resulting in a yearly production of about 108,700 MW...

Chromated copper arsenate (CCA)-treated wood is a preservative treated wood construction product that grew in use in the 1970s for both residential and industrial applications. Although some countries have banned the use of the product for some applications, others have not, and the product continues to enter the waste stream from construction, demolition and remodeling projects. CCA-treated wo...

I/S Nordforbrænding is an inter-municipal waste management company located north of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, which serves approximately 180,000 inhabitants. It was founded in 1965 and it is owned by six municipalities in North Sealand: Allerød, Søllerød, Hørsholm, Fredensborg-Humlebæk, Karlebo and Helsingør as shown in Fig. 1. The company’s mission was to establish a Waste-to-Energy ...

In this study, we investigate the conclusions of a previous study by the authors regarding the competitiveness of waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies with data from Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico’s situation matches many of the conditions laid out in the earlier study and the island is currently seeking to modernize its energy production and waste management options. Examining production and environme...

Global generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) is now ~1200 Tg/yr (1 Tg = 10 g), >70% of which is landfilled. Landfilling of waste contributes ~30-35 Tg methane (CH4 )annually to the world's total CH4 emission of ~550 Tg/yr. Recycling and thermal treatment of waste in wasteto-energy (WtE) facilities contribute equally to diverting MSW from the waste stream destined for landfills and to mitiga...

In a period of less than twenty years, China has become a major actor in the implementation of waste-to-energy technologies for managing municipal solid wastes (MSW); at the present time, an estimated 15% (23 million tons of MSW) are processed in over 100 WTE plants. China is also an exception to the general rule that nations with relatively low GDP per capita rely exclusively on landfilling. T...

This two-part paper assesses four strategies for energy recovery from municipal solid waste (MSW) by dedicated waste-to-energy (WTE) plants generating electricity through a steam cycle. The feedstock is the residue after materials recovery (MR), assumed to be 35% by weight of the collected MSW. In strategy 1, the MR residue is fed directly to a grate combustor. In strategy 2, the MR residue is ...

Different directives of the European Union require operators of waste-to-energy (WTE) plants to report the amount of electricity that is produced from biomass in the waste feed, as well as the amount of fossil CO2 emissions generated by the combustion of fossil waste materials. This paper describes the application of the Balance Method for determining the overall amount of fossil and thus clima...

Until recently, landfills and waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities were the two basic technologies available to process residual (post-recycled) municipal solid waste. These technologies have both advantages and drawbacks, and their relative merits have been debated many different ways. Risk assessments of both technologies have been used to examine their potential threats to human health and the e...

Landfill disposal and waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration remain the two principal options for managing municipal solid waste (MSW). One critical determinant of the acceptability of these options is the different health risks associated with each. In this analysis relying on published data and exposure modeling, we have performed health risk assessments for landfill disposal versus WTE treatment...