LCA of local strategies for energy recovery from waste in England, applied to a large municipal flow

Journal Article · Tue Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Waste Management

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2010.08.023· OSTI ID:21550343

Tunesi, Simonetta ^[1]

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1. Environment Institute, University College London, Pearson Building, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT London (United Kingdom)

An intense waste management (WM) planning activity is currently undergoing in England to build the infrastructure necessary to treat residual wastes, increase recycling levels and the recovery of energy from waste. From the analyses of local WM strategic and planning documents we have identified the emerging of three different energy recovery strategies: established combustion of residual waste; pre-treatment of residual waste and energy recovery from Solid Recovered Fuel in a dedicated plant, usually assumed to be a gasifier; pre-treatment of residual waste and reliance on the market to accept the 'fuel from waste' so produced. Each energy recovery strategy will result in a different solution in terms of the technology selected; moreover, on the basis of the favoured solution, the total number, scale and location of thermal treatment plants built in England will dramatically change. To support the evaluation and comparison of these three WM strategy in terms of global environmental impacts, energy recovery possibilities and performance with respect to changing 'fuel from waste' market conditions, the LCA comparison of eight alternative WM scenarios for a real case study dealing with a large flow of municipal wastes was performed with the modelling tool WRATE. The large flow of waste modelled allowed to formulate and assess realistic alternative WM scenarios and to design infrastructural systems which are likely to correspond to those submitted for approval to the local authorities. The results show that all alternative scenarios contribute to saving abiotic resources and reducing global warming potential. Particularly relevant to the current English debate, the performance of a scenario was shown to depend not from the thermal treatment technology but from a combination of parameters, among which most relevant are the efficiency of energy recovery processes (both electricity and heat) and the calorific value of residual waste and pre-treated material. The contribution and relative importance of recycling and treatment/recovery processes change with the impact category. The lack of reprocessing plants in the area of the case study has shown the relevance of transport distances for recyclate material in reducing the efficiency of a WM system. Highly relevant to the current English WM infrastructural debate, these results for the first time highlight the risk of a significant reduction in the energy that could be recovered by local WM strategies relying only on the market to dispose of the 'fuel from waste' in a non dedicated plant in the case that the SRF had to be sent to landfill for lack of treatment capacity.

• OSTI ID: 21550343
• Journal Information: Waste Management, Vol. 31, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2010.08.023; PII: S0956-053X(10)00448-4; Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved.; ISSN 0956-053X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
CALORIFIC VALUE
COMBUSTION
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COMPOSTING
CONTAINERS
DRYING
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
ENERGY RECOVERY
FLUIDIZED BEDS
GASIFICATION
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
HEAT TREATMENTS
HOUSEHOLDS
MARKET
MUNICIPAL WASTES
PLANNING
SANITARY LANDFILLS
UNITED KINGDOM
WASTE MANAGEMENT
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CLIMATIC CHANGE
COMBUSTION PROPERTIES
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
EFFICIENCY
EUROPE
EVALUATION
MANAGEMENT
OXIDATION
PROCESSING
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE PROCESSING
WASTES
WESTERN EUROPE