Oslo Needs Your Garbage 202
lister king of smeg writes in with news that Oslo is running out of garbage which it burns to generate heat and electricity. "Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage — household trash, industrial waste, even toxic and dangerous waste from hospitals and drug arrests — has a problem: it has literally run out of garbage to burn. The problem is not unique to Oslo, a city of 1.4 million people. Across Northern Europe, where the practice of burning garbage to generate heat and electricity has exploded in recent decades, demand for trash far outstrips supply." Back in October we told you about a similar garbage shortage facing Sweden.
Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
This started decades ago already.
First step was to keep compostables out of the trash (kitchen and garden wastes). Direct result: the rest of the trash, including lots of plastic and some paper, burned much hotter than it used to with all the wet stuff inside. And that caused problems for the ovens that were built for a different kind of fuel mix.
Over the recent years more and more plastics are being taken out from the trash. First the PET bottles, nowadays in large parts of Europe all kinds of plastic packing material has to be kept separate.
Most of the stuff that burns well (paper, plastics, organic wastes) is being recycled now, and kept out of the incinerators. What remains: not much, really. Some glass, stone, metals. Not much that burns well. Some wood will burn, some plastic that's attached to something else or otherwise ended up in the wrong bin. Baby diapers will burn quite well, too, as that's mostly paper and plastics. Rags that are so worn they're not offered to some charity.
Now indeed the volume of trash is decreasing (anything that's taken out to recycle is not trash), and the trash that's there won't burn as well as it used to. So no surprise really that it's causing problems for the operators of waste incinerators.
Re:Reword (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the burned garbage is used to feed central heating systems. Same with a lot of other cities in Scandinavia. A few large central furnaces and a big network of hot water pipes.
Not so much to produce electricity. Most of the electricity in Scandinavia is water power or nuclear with a few coal/oil burners that are used for backup in case the current production is insufficient. Add to it a number of windmills but their contribution is small.
Re:We can help. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not joking. We really do dump it into the ocean.
According to the EPA, [epa.gov] that stopped completely by 1992.
"The main objective of the federal Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988 has been realized--we have stopped dumping sewage sludge into the ocean," Reilly said. "EPA will continue to enforce the consent decrees which require the establishment of long-term, land-based disposal alternatives. We will also continue to encourage solutions that have beneficial uses. Through these efforts, not only are we preventing pollution by protecting the ocean from use as a dump, we are now seeing sludge recognized more and more as a resource, not as a waste.
Re:Nothing new (Score:4, Informative)
"What remains: not much, really. Some glass, stone, metals. Not much that burns well."
I'm not sure what country you're describing, but here in the Netherlands, we separate paper, glass, plastic packaging (PE, PET, PP, PS), organic waste, electrical equipment, chemical waste. Stones (e.g. from breaking down a wall) are not supposed to be mixed with household waste. Laminated materials such as potato crisp bags and milk cartons, styrofoam, discarded household items go into the "other waste" bin. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to, but plastic with food scraps sticking onto it don't make it to my plastics container since I don't want them to rot and smell. My trash bags will burn pretty well.
For the Netherlands, I think company offices are a big contributor to incinerable waste. They separate the paper, but not the plastics. Many company restaurants are not separating compostable waste from what the employees leave on their trays.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, as the others have said they of course got good filtering, and likely burn at high temperatures / efficiently.
Also feel free to look at this picture from MÃlarenergi (I guess it's in VÃsterÃ¥s, Sweden):
http://www.malarenergi.se/PageFiles/8317/Illustration_BB.jpg [malarenergi.se]
Missing the next part of the image.
Here's the full "article" (in their own magazine) in Swedish describing the process and with the full picture:
http://www.malarenergi.se/PageFiles/7417/Pages%20from%20nonstop-4-2012.pdf [malarenergi.se]
A young kid interested in it:
http://www.malarenergi.se/PageFiles/7417/Folke1_3.pdf [malarenergi.se]
Page two here got the full illustration of how it's supposed to work, page one is a description in English - Enjoy.
http://www.malarenergi.se/Documents/Broschyrer/fornyelseprojektet-eng-2013.pdf [malarenergi.se]
http://www.malarenergi.se/sv/om-malarenergi/vara-anlaggningar/kraftvarmeverket/Valkommen-till-fornyelsebloggen/Blogginlagg/En-robust-bransleberedning-helt-avgorande-for-Block-6/ [malarenergi.se]
http://www.malarenergi.se/sv/om-malarenergi/vara-anlaggningar/kraftvarmeverket/Valkommen-till-fornyelsebloggen/Blogginlagg/Varfor-bygger-Malarenergi-en-avfallsforbranningsanlaggning/ [malarenergi.se]
http://www.malarenergi.se/sv/om-malarenergi/vara-anlaggningar/kraftvarmeverket/Valkommen-till-fornyelsebloggen/Blogginlagg/Avfall-som-bransle/ [malarenergi.se]
http://www.malarenergi.se/sv/om-malarenergi/vara-anlaggningar/kraftvarmeverket/Valkommen-till-fornyelsebloggen/Blogginlagg/Miljo/ [malarenergi.se]
http://www.malarenergi.se/sv/om-malarenergi/vara-anlaggningar/kraftvarmeverket/Valkommen-till-fornyelsebloggen/?category=turbine [malarenergi.se]
Re:Reword (Score:5, Informative)
Denmark depends on their neighbors pumped hydro to dump excess wind generation, and draw upon when the wind isn't blowing. Nice arrangement for them, as it is essential for the success of wind or solar. Sadly, availability is limited, and Germany's choice to abandon nuclear is also stressing the grid in that region, and causing trouble for neighboring nations.
Re:Reword (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the burned garbage is used to feed central heating systems. Same with a lot of other cities in Scandinavia. A few large central furnaces and a big network of hot water pipes.
Not so much to produce electricity. Most of the electricity in Scandinavia is water power or nuclear with a few coal/oil burners that are used for backup in case the current production is insufficient. Add to it a number of windmills but their contribution is small.
In Sweden (starting with Sweden, since I'm Swedish), windmills make out about 1/20 (slightly more, this far into 2013) of the total of the electricity produced that reach the public distribution network (it is also the second (after solar power) largest electric power production technology that produce electricity for local use by private buildings, and that production is not part of the official statistics). It is roughly the same amount of electricity that is produced in Sweden by waste heat from industry (most "waste" heat is reused for central heating, not electricity production, and Swedish industry is really good at reusing heat in production (e.g. compared to U.S. industry, which that, for example, use 20 times more energy to create heat per produced unit in smeltwerks and 10 times more in paper mills)). The wind turbines contribution to Swedens electricity production grew by 18% in 2012, and is still growing at an accelerated rate.
I'm not sure that I would call more then 1/20 of electricity production for a country with a small population, but with a huge heavy industry (mostly producing iron and copper or products made of steel and copper, and paper, all very power consuming processes), a small contribution.
In Denmark wind power stand for more then 1/4 of the electricity production and consumption. And most of the technology they use to produce it is several decades old, so the production will grow as they replace old technology with newer more efficient one. Most electrical energy used in Denmark is used for farming or food production (most of the bacon consumed in the world is produced in Denmark). Denmarks protectorate Iceland, mostly use thermal power, but wind power is on the rise. Its other large protectorate, Greenland, is mostly dependent on fossil fuel. But the amount of electricity consumed by the small Icelandic and Greenlandic populations is minuscule, compared to that used by main Denmark.
I'm not sure that I would call more then 1/4 of electricity production for a small country a small contribution.
Norway mostly rely on water power for their energy needs. But the last 2 years they've built new wind power plants even faster then Sweden.
Sweden, Denmark and Norway are self sufficient when it comes to energy consumption. Small amounts of electricity is imported from other European countries during consumption peaks and exported during production peaks.
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Informative)
There was an excellent comment on The Register [theregister.co.uk] earlier this week examining this very question:
"You could always burn your own dung for heat and cooking!"
I doubt it. If the tods are dry enough, and your diet high enough in plant materials, then there's a chance it will give out some modest heat because the lignin fibres that your body hasn't digested do have a similar energy content as wood fibres of similar weight. But lookin at what Lester's selected the rice doesn't look to be whole grain, eggs will leave nothing, chick peas will be good, so on balance I reckon he'll be crimping off lengths of regular clay, and that doesn't burn well even if dried.
If you don't have any other choices, dried elephant dung picked up off the African savannah may be a just about useable fuel, but for the reasons above I doubt that Reg writer droppings will be anything like as good. This is why sewage plant companies have to use fossil fuels to incinerate sewage sludges. If Lester has got some of the fine sieves used in (for example) sedimentology, then he could dissolve his dreadnoughts and used tissue in a bucket of water, and filter the resulting solution, rinse a few times, and he'll have the lignin fibres on their own, ready to use as soon as they are dried. Even so, any neighbours may take issue with Lester's renewables, and the actual energy recovered will be very small indeed. Like most other forms of renewable energy, in fact.
Re:Reword (Score:4, Informative)
Denmarks protectorate Iceland, mostly use thermal power, but wind power is on the rise. Its other large protectorate,
Iceland has NOT been a "protectorate" of Denmark for nearly 70 years. Also, wind power is NOT on the rise here. There is currently only one test wind mast (and that blew down recently, not sure if they have it back up) with no plans for further development. We do, however, have plenty of hydro and geothermal energy.
Re:1.4 million?? (Score:4, Informative)