Renew On Line (UK) 30

Extracts from the March-April 2001 edition of Renew
These extracts only represent about 25% of it

   Welcome   Archives   Bulletin         
 

 

Wave gets started

 Offshore Wind also gets started

Green Fuel Funding and Rural Renewal

Green Power market : Future Energy

 Waste Burn Risks: MSW and MBM

Energy Crops and the RO

 Electric exploitation: power price fiddles

 DETR’s Cleaner Vehicles

 No Solar VAT

Wind in Scotland- ups and downs  

 UK Election - policies

 Big Dam’s Blocked

 EU Progress: REFIT OK?

 Fallout from COP-6: EU, US, Australia

 Nuclear News and Analysis

 Forum: Micro Power

Waste Burn Risks

The UK currently has 15 solid waste incinerators, but in order to deal with the expected increase in municipal solid waste (MSW), one estimate suggests that we will need 70 more combustion plants. However, according to the Observer (29/10), statistics derived from government sources suggest that the resultant emissions of acidic nitrous oxide gas might be expected to ‘cause at least 350 deaths a year’ for the 25 year life time of the plants- 8,700 deaths in all.

This estimate is, they say, based on a DETR prediction that 50 tonnes of nitrous oxide emissions would on average lead to one death- and, despite using newer, cleaner, technology than the current incinerators, the new incinerators would release 17,000 tonnes. Similar figures were used by Greenpeace in their campaign against the proposed expansion of the Edmonton incinerator in London- see Renew 129.

Greenpeace noted that ‘the Department of Health’s Economic Appraisal of Health Effects of Air Pollution (EAHEAP) have prepared a cost benefit analysis which calculated ‘Number of deaths not brought forward’ per tonne of pollution avoided. The figures are 0.02 deaths a year per tonne of NOx, 0.005 deaths per tonne of SO2 and 0.002 deaths per tonne of particulates. The figures are quoted in the DETR’s report: Regulatory and Environmental Impact Assessment of the proposed Waste Incineration Directive.’

In addition, the Observer noted, there could be deaths due to other emissions - including heavy metals and dioxins from the combustion of plastics, a point also made by Greenpeace. The Observer says that an as yet unpublished US study indicated that 7% of cancers are due to dioxin exposure, and that around 80% of the dioxin exposure is from incinerators. In Renew 126, we quoted figures from an earlier US study which suggested that, in the USA, the incineration of municipal waste, medical wastes and sewage sludge produced 64% of dioxin emissions.

However, we also noted that the official view in the UK is that incineration of MSW makes a much smaller contribution than other sources- for example a 1998 Environment Agency study put the figure for incinerators at 1% of total dioxin intake by human beings, whereas car exhausts contribute 9.5%. Other large emitters include the steel industry and domestic bonfires. It's also sometimes argued that the combustion of dioxin sources in incinerators actually reduce the publics exposure to dioxins. New technologies are also meant to be better at reducing emissions- especially gasification/pyrolysis .

Even so, it seems increasingly unlikely that concerned local people will accept incinerators in their areas- for good or ill, after the BSE disaster, official assurances or risks are simply not believed. All of which means that the waste management problem is going to get worse.

Waste Strategy

The UK is supposed to be reducing its reliance on landfill, and increasing its recycling effort. It certainly has some quite ambitious targets. As we noted in Renew 126 the governments new waste strategy includes a two thirds cut in biodegradable waste sent to landfill sites by 2020, and almost a doubling of waste recycling- with 33% being recycled or composted by 2015. To this end, the Government has just allocated £50m for curb-side domestic waste collection. However, that won’t be enough to avoid the need to expand waste combustion.

Many other European countries currently incinerate more waste than the UK (42% of Denmarks waste is burnt, compared to 9% in the UK), but they are gradually reducing this in favour of recycling. The enthusiasts for recycling say it can be expanded well beyond the UK’s target (we only recycle 9% at present while Denmark recycles 39%) but the counter view is that this would be expensive. Some hard choices clearly need to be made. That’s also the case in terms of the use of waste as an energy source- see our review of ESD’s new report below, and the Reviews section (Renew 130), p 27-28.

EfW: Energy Recovery

Certainly the issues get even more complicated by the fact that waste is also a potential energy source- whose recovery offsets the costs of waste collection and disposal. For example, landfill gas (methane) can be tapped and is one of the cheapest sources of non-fossil energy. So of course is the energy released by waste combustion. The NFFO has supported both in the past- and they were seen as helping the UK to reach its target of getting 10% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010.

However, waste combustion has not been included in the list of renewable sources in the European Unions draft Renewable Directive (see EU report later)- and the DTI have decided not to include waste combustion as a eligible source for meeting the Renewable Obligation. Landfill gas is however included. Since we have landfill sites, it certainly makes sense to capture this powerful greenhouse gas rather than letting it escape. The downside of course is the unsightly and unpleasant expanses of landfilling and the leakage of often toxic materials from sites. Some of these problems could be avoiding by better site management and design, and there may even be ways to get biological processes established within the decaying waste which can trap and neutralise some of the leachates- as John Todd argued at the recent Schumacher Lectures in Bristol (see Renew 129).

Even so, the long term solution must surely be to reduce the amount of post consumer wastes we produce- for example by reducing the amount of packaging of consumer products. Just getting consumers to bring their wastes back to be landfilled, burnt or even recycled, is not enough.

Keep Burning?

Some argue that pyrolysis or full gassification will be ‘cleaner’ than straight combustion, but it’s not clear if that also means that dioxin production would be lower. If you really want to burn something then it looks like energy crops are a much better bet than waste. British Biogen notes that ‘SRC is not likely to be a major source of toxic organic substances such as PAHs, dioxins and furans, which are produced as a result of many combustion processes. Controlled burning of SRC and use of appropriate pollution abatement equipment will keep these to a minimum’. On nitrous oxides, it adds ‘wood has a small inherent nitrogen content, typically 0.1% by weight for willow SRC, compared with coal which is typically 1%: so using SRC is likely to result in lower emissions’.

See http://www.britishbiogen.co.uk/gpg/srcgpg/srcgpgenrgyprod.html

ESD on Energy from Waste - Burning Money?

ESD, the Energy for Sustainable Development consultancy, has produced a report for Greenpeace which looks at the various subsidies for energy from waste incineration (EfW) projects. It calculates that the 160MW of electricity generating EfW capacity supported by the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO) and Scottish Renewable Order (SRO) has received around £233m between 1990-1999, or around 34% of the £683m allocated to date to NFFO/SRO projects. If this money had been made available to offshore wind projects instead, and assuming that these were also supported by capital grants (as has now been proposed in the DTI consultation on the Renewable Obligation), so as to support contracts at 5.5p/kWh then, ESD argues, some 154MW of capacity could have been developed. ESD assume that the 3p/kWh buy out price proposed by the DTI is accepted and runs for 15 years and that in practice capital grants only cover 20% of the cost on average, as opposed to the 40% suggested by the DTI for initial projects.

What about the future? ESD report that, while all four of the EfW projects awarded contracts under NFFO-1 have gone ahead, only 2 out of the 10 supported by NFFO-2 have proceeded and only 4 out of the 20 in NFFO-3 have been commissioned. And, so far, no EfW projects under NFFO-4 or 5 have gone ahead. In part this poor success rate has been due to local opposition and planning objections. The implication is that abandoning the new projects would not be a major loss.

ESD say that, from 2000 onwards, when and if they did go ahead, the new EfW projects, plus existing ones, are likely to receive around £187m as a result of existing NFFO/SRO contracts, since these contracts are to be honoured under the transitional arrangement proposed for the switch over to the Renewables Obligation. If, instead, these contracts were revoked, and the money was allocated to offshore wind, ESD say that around 123MW of capacity could be developed- again assuming 5.5p/kWh contracts over 15 years with capital grants.

ESD also notes that if EFW projects had been left as eligible for inclusion the Renewable Obligation, then that would have given the industry a major windfall. Based on the 3p/kWh buy out price, they could have obtained around £308m by 2010. You can see why the DTI decided to exclude EfW- arguing that it is now able to operate without support.

ESD say that, if that money was spent on offshore wind, it could help to develop some 283 MW of capacity, assuming once again a 5.5p/kWh contracts over 15 years. Since EfW has been excluded from the RO, in principle this money is still available. So if we add all the above, and assume that support for EfW is abandoned, then there would be £728m available which could support 670 MW of offshore wind by 2010.

See ‘Going to Waste’ ESD/Greenpeace, Oct 2000

MBM Power Doubts

The waste combustion debate took on a new turn with concerns also emerging over the combustion of ‘meat and bone meal’ (MBM). As we reported in Renew 120, MBW is a powder produced by rendering down the carcasses of the cows slaughtered under the governments ruling which requires that all cows are destroyed after 30 months to eliminate BSE- mad cow disease- from the UK cow herds. Animals which exhibited signs of BSE are incinerated separately. The rest, the presumably mostly healthy animals, are converted in to MBM, which is then burnt as a fuel.

Fibrogen has a plant at Glanford in North Lincolnshire now used for this purpose- it was initially designed for burning chicken litter. MBM is actually a better fuel, with less emissions resulting. The resultant ash is currently being sent to a landfill site at Winterton in N. Lincolnshire. But, given that there may be some cows with BSE feeding into the MBM (the MAFF estimate is 1%), there have been concerns about whether the combustion process would effectively sterilise all the infected material. The official view has been that there was no risk.

However, according to the Observer (29/10) recently tests carried out by the Environment Agency officials on ash from one incinerator have found potentially lethal proteins in the residue.’ It reported that the agency has demanded that Fibrogen identifies measures to improve the combustion of the material’ and ‘design and install’ new equipment.

Fibrogen sells the electricity generated from its MBM operation- and that provides some of the power used by Yorkshire Electricity for part of its green tariff scheme- subscribers were informed about the use of this source when the company first took it on. Evidently most were happy with it. After all, whatever happens, the MBM will have to be burnt (there is evidently 400,00 tonnes of carcasses still in store awaiting incineration) and it’s surely better to get energy from the MBM rather than just burning it without energy recovery. At least then something good would have come from the BSE disaster. But if infected material is escaping then not many people will see this as a green source.

As it turns out however, it’s far from clear whether the Observer article actually got its facts right. It seems that Fibrogen have been asked to improve there ash handling process, but this had nothing to do with safety. Yorkshire Electricity commented (29/10/00) The article in the Observer is misleading when it refers to "infected ash" and "potentially lethal proteins" - because MBM has come from BSE free cattle, the ash is not infected and any protein traces found in the ash are those of healthy cattle.

As an additional safety measure, the MBM incinerated by Fibrogen does not contain any traces of spinal cord (the part of the cattle that could be infected).’

It added ‘Fibrogen have a number of very strict safety procedures in place to ensure that the ash is transported and disposed of in a safe manner. When the ash is transported to and from the plant, it is in sealed, airtight containers. It is then incinerated at 1200 degrees centigrade. The ash that remains is then transported, in sealed containers, to the landfill site where it is put into an airtight silo and covered with water to prevent any spread. It is then put into the landfill site and immediately covered with other material.’

They also noted that ‘Fibrogen regularly send samples of the ash for testing and those from the chimney beat the standards for emissions set by the environment agency. Fibrogen are currently looking at improving the standards in relation to the ash at the bottom of the grate, this is in accordance with new standards set by the European Union’.

Finally, it concluded, any risk associated with the process of incinerating MBM at Glanford is less than one in 100 billion’.

Pretty long odds then by any standards. Even so, what matters is the perception of risks, and for many people it seems, statistical estimates are less convincing than what looks like real and present dangers. For good or ill then, the MBM issue goes to show yet again just how unpopular combustion is as a way of dealing with wastes of whatever kind. Maybe the technology can be improved. Certainly it must be if we are to continue with waste combustion. But, in an very competitive energy market, there is always the fear that, despite regulatory controls, corners will be cut, and errors made. In which case, given the post -BSE sensitivity of the public to health risks, the prospects for waste combustion of any type look grim.

The implications for waste strategy are clear, and might be positive if emphasis is placed instead on source reduction and recycling. But let's hope that the abandonment of municipal waste combustion and the doubts about MBM does not also undermine the UK’s green power programme.

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