Generating Energy from Waste Products and its Feasibility

Waste to Energy (WTE) may be defined as a system that takes waste as input and gives energy in the form of electricity or heat as an output. This process actually helps minimize waste. The feasibility analysis carried out with regards to various factors such as technological, financial, environmental and social for expansion plans of Amsterdam Waste Environmental Consultancy (AWECT).

FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY

Any business idea brings with itself a set of questions like how much it would cost to set up the project, what are the sources available for funding, what would be the return on investment, how much money is needed and how much money will the business be able to generate in the long run. The answers to such questions are the primary base for a financial feasibility analysis. So the question to begin with would be what is the cost of setting up a WTE plant? It depends on a lot of factors such as the capital cost, operational costs etc.

Now having understood how much it would cost approximately the next step would be to determine how much revenue it would generate and is it actually profitable in the near future. Generally a WTE plant earns revenues through two ways. Firstly by collecting the tipping fee from the municipality for the MSW that the municipality sends to the WTE facility for treatment and second by selling the electricity produced.

 

TECHNOLOGICAL FEASIBILITY

It is important to understand the nature of the technology present. A lot of the techniques are available for generating electricity however due to certain limitations and characteristics of the waste it is not possible to fit in the required set up and hence the project fails. A WTE plant based on incineration also throws certain challenges regarding the input that is to be provided and whether it matches the required technology or not.

To begin with let us first understand the technology that is used by AWECT. It is similar to the grate technology but the noticeable difference can be seen in the designing of the boilers. A simply grate technology has net efficiency of around 22-23% but the technology used by AWECT boasts of a net efficiency of 30%. To produce electricity with such efficiency requires that the steam producing capacity of the boilers has to be increased and increasing the temperature inside the boilers could lead to corrosion of the lining of the boilers. To prevent such event, the inner side of the boiler is clad with an alloy of nickel and chrome. The temperature of the steam produced is controlled at around 440 degrees while it can be increased up to 480 degrees as well. The saturated steam that is produced can be reheated using the external heat exchange system. The WTE high efficiency technology also decreases the flue gas oxygen level from 11% to 6% which results in lower flue gas emission and heat loss is minimized.

ENVIRONMENTAL FEASIBILITY

In today’s world where businesses are constantly motivated to grow and prosper it has become equally important to not just focus on the economic bottom line but also on the environmental bottom line as well. Development at the cost of environment is hardly acceptable and as such businesses are constantly motivated to grow keeping the idea of sustainable development in mind. Thus environmental feasibility is the study or analysis of the project with respect to certain environmental standards that have been put in place by various international bodies and governments and also to understand the impact the project is going to have to our environment. In this chapter we closely look and analyze the environmental feasibility of the WTE plants.

The idea of introducing WTE plants was to generate energy from waste so that the burden from the scarce fossil fuels is reduced and energy could be produced without exploiting the finite resources. What we mean by this is that, WTE plants were built in order to support our environment so that the world could move towards a circular economy i.e. eliminating waste and keeping products and materials in use. But what if the plants that are created to eliminate waste and reduce pollution, itself start polluting the environment. Also uncontrolled burning that happens inside the boiler may lead to different pollution hazards. A lot of WTE plants that have been employed have managed to decrease the waste count on land but at the same time increase the pollution count in the air. Moreover they don’t even meet the required criteria for reducing the total carbon emissions and neither do they have any compliance with the standards set by various international organizations such as the Paris Convention.

However, there are also WTE plants that are supreme examples of turning waste into energy having zero impact to the environment. One such example is the high efficiency WTE technique employed by AWECT. Not only does the technique meet all the environmental standards but also it reduces the overall green house effect. The gas that is released is completely treated and the water used in the cooling process is recycled. All waste that comes as an input is treated and only 1% of it is left. Even that 1% is put to use in various process such as road building or brick making.

SOCIAL FEASIBILITY

Every business takes place in a society and therefore the acceptance of people is one important part of the feasibility analysis. It makes absolutely no sense to start a business at a place where the general mindset of the people is very unwelcoming. The analysis and study of people’s acknowledgement towards a certain business and its product is what we generally refer to as social feasibility analysis. The reason why it is important is because it helps in decision making and minimizing losses. Moreover it also helps identify whether the working class requires acquiring certain skill sets in order to undergo employment.

Our people are not fully aware of the benefits that high Efficiency WTE can reap in the near future. More so it is the people’s unwillingness to pay huge amount of money for energy produced through incinerating waste as cheaper sources of energy are available. They are yet to realize the detrimental effects that can occur when energy is produced through fossil fuels and non renewable resources. Moreover countries struggling from basic resources are not keen in paying gate fee or landfill tax.

 

Introductory Note

Santosh Rawat is a MBA topper from Tezpur Central University. During his MBA, he studied in the Avans University of Netherlands for six months under students exchange program. This article is a part of his internship at AWECT, Amsterdam. The main paper has been divided into several parts so as to fit as a newspaper article.