VIEWS AS TO WHAT SHOULD BE DONE WITH NYC MSW

Comparison of Transport and Reaction Phenomena in Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Power Plants

Prof. Nickolas J. Themelis, Director, andOlivier L.R. Morin, Research Associate

Keynote Presentation at WASTEENG 2014 Rrio de Janeiro, August 25-28 1Origin of this study: Comparison of geometry and operating parameters of existing MSW and biomass WTE operations FeedstockShredded MSW MSW MSW2 MSW3Wood chipsCoal slurry, Shredded MSW4TechnologySEMASSMass burnMass burnMass burn57% H2O, FB39% H2O, CFB48.4%H20, CFBPlant locationRochester MABresciaUnion, NJEssex, NYArchangelskKarita Cixi, ChinaStarting year1988199819941990200120012012Unit capacity, tons/day91079248084515847318800Height of combustion chamber,30221920.4216.244.616.8Length of grate, m687.4810.76.49.86.94Width of grate,m1112.87.86.145.89.83.14Grate area, m2661025866379721.79Combustion chamber cross sect. area, m266623832379721.79Volume of combustion chamber, m^31980121066312056014326366Flue gas flow, Nm3/ton5600409156535200375061002550Process gas volume, Nm3/hour212333135003113052183182247500186001285000Assumed ave gas temperature, C950950950950950950950Velocity of gas in comb. chamber, m/s3.672.503.396.537.60224.45Average minimum residence time, s8.188.795.603.132.132.043.78Grate combustion capacity, tons/h/m2 0.570.320.340.541.783.141.53Heat value of fuel, MJ/kg11.611.311118.710.33.98Heat value of fuel, MWh/ton3.23.13.13.12.42.91.11Thermal flux, MW/m2 of grate area1.91.01.01.64.39.01.69Fluid bed power plants burning wood chip slurries (40% water): Heat flux of 4-9 MW/m2; Moving Grate power plants burning MSW (30% water: Heat flux of 1-2 MW/m2

+ +120 kWh,el/ton+ 0.6 MWel

+0.1 MWel

The EEC hierarchy of waste management3Energy recovery from wastes(waste-to energy or WTE) is equivalent to recycling Today, several countries such as Japan, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Korea and Singapore use WTE as the main process for treating post-recycling municipal solid wastes (MSW).

Thermal treatment (WTE): 200 mill. tons Sanitary landfill, partial CH4 recovery: 200 mill. tons

Landfilled without CH4 recovery: >800 mill. tons Estimated land use for sanitary landfilling: 10 tons MSW per square meterEstimated global disposition of urban post-recycling municipal solid wastes (total: 1.2 billion tons; 2012) 5 Conservation of land near cities Energy recovery: 0.5 MWh/ton, over LFG recovery Reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions: 0.5-1 ton CO2 per ton MSW (vs landfilling) Esthetically more acceptable to communities; in fact only acceptable option in most developing countries. There are only two options for managing post-recycling wastes: Sanitary landfill or thermal treatment (WTE) WTE advantages:

6 Dissemination of wrong information by some environmental organizations (God recycles but devil burns) Some of these organizations were formed at a time (before 1990) when incinerators were major emitters of heavy metals and dioxins. However, their opposition has not changed as the Air Pollution Control systems of WTEs have improved to the point that total toxic emissions of WTEs have decreased by factors of 1000 to 10000. For example total toxic dioxin emissions of U.S. are now 8,000 hours per year

Low personnel requirement (