Background Information on Professor
Haas
o Teaches
§ ENV302
§ Senior design
§ Environmental engineering 300 (intro environmental engineering)
§ Guest lecture in 201
· Results of Incineration:
o Bottom ash
§ Left at the
bottom of the furnace after incineration
o Gas from
combustion
§ Lots of
pollutants
§ Captured by
air pollution control devices
·
Create solid or liquid waste material
·
Residual pollutants left in gas
o CO2à climate change
o Small
amounts of Sulfer dioxide and nitrogen dioxide
§ Smog
o Small
amounts of heavy metals and organic contaminates
§ Possibly
toxic
· What are your general views on trash incineration?
§
It was oversold
§
Very popular in 70s/80s
§
People were overly optimistic to economics
§
Underestimated its complexity
·
Especially with upfront material separation
§
Case study in Harrisburg
·
Contracted out to private company
·
Gone into bankruptcy
§
Not eliminating waste
§
Changing ground water problems to air pollution
problems
· Incineration plants (at least the one I've been to)
claim that all the waste is water vapor. Do you think this is better than the methane
and runoff caused by landfills?
§
Find a way to compare the two
§
Life cycle analysis
§
Illuminate all inputs and outputs
§
Assign value to adverse effect with inputs and
outputs
§
Landfills
·
Leaking
·
Methane gas
·
Failure of liners
·
Ground water contamination
·
Not all parts of the country are suitable
· In Sweden, the focus of our project, they import trash
from other countries in Europe. This
causes pollution from trucks. Is this
better in your opinion than the pollution caused by landfills?
§
Importing Widely used
§
Barge or rail
· Why aren’t incineration plants used widely in the US?
§
Large upfront investment
§
Philadelphia used to have incinerators
§
For reasonable size flow, 100 million dollar
investment
§
Few private investors want to take the risk
§
Complexity and financing
· In total, Sweden gets about 8% of their energy from
these plants. In your opinion, is this
worth the damages done to the environment?
§
Land is more valuable in Europe
§
More open space in US
§
Availability to cite landfills is difficult
§
Methane capture is easier technology to
implement
·
Capturing significant amounts of green house
gasses
·
More compared to incineration
§
Can generate electricity from methane by
combustion or fuel cells
· Is there a long-term effect caused by these
incineration plants?
§
Other than direct pollution:
§
Long life
§
How to clean
§
What do you do with it
§
Local contaminates
§
Needs to be restored
· This process creates a large amount of ash. Can this ash be disposed of in an
environmentally friendly way? Can this ash be sold or used?
§
Ash has value
§
Used in construction
·
Asphalt and concrete
·
Bricks out of ash
§
Google ash and reuse
· Can we recycle more of what is incinerated?
§
Higher amount of front end recycle in Sweden
·
House hold and business level separation
§
Mixed recycle in most of US
§
Separate bins for paper, glass, metal, ect
·
In some states
§
Purer recycle = higher value
§
Left over has higher combustion value
· What would stop countries from incineration other than
financial?
§
Air pollutants dispending in atmosphere depends
on weather
§
High frequency of stagnant air doesn’t have
dispersion in atmosphere
§
Social acceptance
·
NIMBY
·
Not in my back yard
·
Local objections
·
Remote facilities:
o
Not much population
o
Not many communities
o
Locals wont agree to being dumping ground
o
Regional rivalries
o
Citing is large issue
o
Some states allow local land use to be preempted
§
Most do not
o
All goes back to economics
- Conclusion:
- Technically phisable but economically not realistic
-CB
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