Waste-to-energy emerges as new form of investment into industry projects
It’s now possible to implement the energy recovery process on an even larger scale than before, says WTE expert Johnny Stuen
NEW energy can be produced from waste, and a whole new field of waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies has developed to produce economically beneficial results in the process of waste management.
“New energy is energy produced on renewable sources or energy recovered from resources that are already spent and cannot be recovered in any other way or form, at least for now,” says Johnny Stuen, WTE and onshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) area manager at KANFA/Technip Energies, a Norwegian firm.
WTE, also known as energy from waste, is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from the primary treatment of waste or the processing of waste into a fuel source.
“The most visible way it has been adopted is by applying the R-formula that states that if you recover less than a specified amount of the energy in the waste to be incinerated, you are not a recovery operation but a destruction operation. This is done as a European regulation all over the European Union,” Stuen tells The Business Times (BT) in an interview.
“If you are not able to fulfil the R-formula, you are shut out from large parts of the market trading in waste treatment (as this is a sellable commodity) and financing becomes much harder. We see also now that some governing bodies are preparing to demand carbon capture from WTE, to make a kind of licence to operate. It is not done anywhere yet, but we expect the demand to come.”
Stuen has been active for over 10 years in the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) working group for energy recovery, serving as its chair over the last 5 years. “We want to spread knowledge about how the technology works, how it is wise to use it, and how it is safe,” he tells BT.
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“WTE must be a part of a total waste management system; it is not a silver bullet alone. We discuss technology, improvements in technology, frame conditions, environmental approach, et cetera.”
“The fact that the group is worldwide means that we also can spread best practices from one part of the world to another, often with very concrete ideas and actions. We try to give as many facts as possible around the development of WTE to everybody, both the public and decision-makers. We were, for instance, very early in discussing carbon capture as a possible technology and tool for WTE, even though this will be a financial hurdle for much of the industry. We tie experts and knowledge about WTE and waste management together all over the world.”
Stuen has been working with the Waste Management Agency, City of Oslo, in the area of production and technical development – for instance, dividing the responsibility of the WTE in the city into municipal and commercial parts. The commercial part is also responsible for running the district heating network in the city, where WTE has priority. This gives both legal and economic right of way for efficient WTE plants that deliver as much energy as possible. At the moment, the city has started to build the first full-scale carbon-capture plant at a WTE facility in the world, even though it is a very expensive venture.
Asked how municipal waste can be reused for the benefit of people who produce it and society at large, he says direct reuse is the simplest and best, but also very hard to achieve. Next would be being able to recycle the materials directly without too much processing – but that is hard to achieve, and to find the right places and applications. Biological waste is best treated anaerobically, producing biogas and fertiliser. That biogas can be transformed into other useful gases/chemicals or used as a fuel.
“Then, when we have recycled and treated these fractions, we have a residual that is too dirty, too mixed and too polluted to recycle. It is best recovered as energy, both electrical and as heat,” says Stuen. “There are many ways to do this, and more innovative solutions come up now, especially in an energy crisis as we are seeing today.”
While WTE, sorting plants and biological treatment (biogas) are important in general, they are being deployed for heating in Europe to lower the pressure on resources, many of them scarce, and to lower carbon dioxide emissions in waste treatment.
“Using the biogas instead of diesel or replacing fossil methane is very sound, and reusing the residual waste as energy gives very good results in these directions. If we can reuse the materials directly or recycle them without using too much energy, that must be done first. For that, the development of robust and precise sorting technology is very important. The sorting technology must be developed much more and put in front of biological treatment and WTE,” says Stuen.
“It is a much better alternative as the final sink than a landfill. One tonne of residual waste incinerated lets out 1 tonne of carbon dioxide. Left in a landfill, it will release at least the equivalent of 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide.”
Concentrating on carbon
Since 2015, he has been focusing on carbon capture, especially from WTE. That along with the transportation and storage/use of carbon dioxide are areas that are growing in importance in the global economy.
“The world lets out somewhere between 35 and 40 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. To be able to keep the temperature on Earth within the 2 deg C target, this must go down to net zero by 2050,” Stuen tells BT.
“We can produce lots of renewable energy in the future, we can recycle much more and better, but there will always be 2 factors that emit carbon dioxide: the treatment of waste that is not recyclable, and the processes that emit carbon dioxide in their nature – for instance, the production of cement. These emissions can be stopped by capturing the carbon dioxide and storing it under the surface of the earth.”
“I have been a part of this business and projects since 2015, when we started to develop the project in Oslo. We have been testing technology, developing projects, legal matters, and value chains. We now see that this is possible to do within the constraints of economy, law, and technology,” he shares.
To actually get to net zero, he says, we must continue to develop the competence and knowledge in this area, and make many more people aware of it.
In any new area, especially with work of a developmental nature, getting financing is an uphill task. “It is difficult to compare money that you must spend now, to money that you must spend in 25-30 years,” says Stuen.
“Now, the signs are quite clear, so now the investment money and the public money are coming to this industry, both because of the world actually experiencing some of the consequences of climate change already and also thanks to the perseverance and patience of the scientists and industrial people working on this.”
There are some creative and successful ways to get financing for waste management and create bankability in projects.
“One of the best examples I know of is industries using their waste, either from industrial processes or municipal waste, as their energy source, often getting paid for it, instead of having to pay for treatment of their waste. Placing a WTE close to an industrial area that needs electricity, steam and heat is very good,” says Stuen.
“Many other successful projects look in the same direction, making either an income or a neutral cost to a problem that before has meant considerable cost. Of course, public regulations are a very good tool for this. Landfill ban or high landfill taxes is the best incentive of them all.”
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