Taking a closer Look at Waste Incineration and Climate Change
Thursday, May 06, 2010
As Metro Vancouver ponders waste management options there has been a lot of talk about the what would be the most climate friendly approach. Industry lobbyists have been making claims that waste incineration is a form of green energy or somehow reduces carbon emissions. This is not true waste incineration is carbon intensive and would result in a serious increases in climate changing pollution in the region. In fact there is no more carbon intensive way to produce energy than burning garbage. This piece will explain why waste incineration is the least climate friendly way to deal with our garbage.
First lets take a look at the composition of the regions waste.
As you can see organic materials like paper, food waste, yard trimmings and wood make up more than half of our garbage. When incinerated both compostable organic materials and fossil fuel derived materials release about equal amounts of CO2.
Garbage no matter what composition is a low quality source of fuel. The caloric value of these materials are very low. Waste-to-energy facilities are more carbon intensive per mega-watt hour than any form of power production including a coal fired power plant.
Claims that are made that waste incineration reduces Green House Gases (GHG) relies on an interpreting GHG accounting rules set in place by the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). GHG emissions are separated into different categories, fossil derived and land based. The land based emissions generally cover things like the normal emissions from a forest. Using this climate accounting approach means that the biological material in our waste would be considered carbon neutral. This is an issue of some debate. This article published in Science magazine, the most widely read scientific journal in North America explores this important topic.
Also this letter from 90 climate scientists to the US congress raises concern about this accounting loophole.
By not counting CO2 derived from burning organic material you are assuming that the amount of biological material remains constant. In fact this is not the case. We are rapidly using up the earths biological material. The truth is we are actually running a massive carbon debt. In fact the equivalent of 2 US football fields (1 hectare) of forest is cut down globally every second.
Even just looking at forests in BC and it is plain to see that we are not growing enough trees to replace what we have lost both through traditional forestry and now as the result of the pine beattle which has been estimated to be killing of 80% of BC’s Lodgepole Pine.
Also the issue of time frame must be considered. A recent report out of Massachusetts show that it takes almost 100 year to recapture carbon even if the same amount of biomass is planted as is being burned. This is a particular concern given that the IPCC tells us we need to virtually eliminate CO2 emissions by 2050.
Given these considerations the IPCC still clearly states that emissions from incineration of organics must be counted as a distinct category.
Therefore when talking about waste incineration it is misleading to not at the very least illustrate the amount of biogenic carbon that is being released. At the end of the day it makes no difference in the atmosphere if the emissions are from biogenic sources or fossil derived sources, either way it traps heat on the planet and we need to get down to 350ppm of carbon in the atmosphere.
Not including these numbers produces skewed results and gives people the false impression of a small carbon footprint when in fact it is quite the opposite.
Other key arguments to explore are the comparison of methane coming off a landfill to GHG emissions from incineration and the claims related to potential reductions in CO2 from home heating by using waste incineration for district heating .
Incinerators vs. Landfills?
Methane is a very problematic green house gas. It is estimated to be 21 times as potent in terms of its ability to trap heat on the planet as CO2. Dealing with Methane emissions from our landfills is very important.
There are a few things that need to be clearly understood. First of all it takes 20 - 25 years for all the methane in a landfill to dissipate. So that means that even if we stop dumping organics in the landfill tomorrow there will still be emissions for at least another 20 years. This means that no matter what else we do we have a responsibility to do everything we can to trap these methane emissions. Today about 50% of these emissions are either trapped and used in greenhouses or simply flared off as CO2. As Metro Vancouver considers waste management investment options its seems clear that the first priority should be to invest in upgrading methane capture capabilities. One proposal at Cache Creek would increase the capture rate to between 70% and 80% and would convert the Methane to Liquid Natural Gas which would be used to drive garbage trucks taking them off diesel fuel.
It is important to understand that emissions from landfill are entirely the result of organics biodegrading. Plastics in landfill remain mostly inert. The means that organics are being counted when related to landfill but they are not when related to incineration.
If for you eliminate the organics from landfill you ultimately eliminate the GHG emissions from landfill. The province of Noval Scotia has lead the way in this and banned organics from landfill in the 1990's. This has lead to a massive growth in jobs in composting. The city of Vancouver has just launched its new composting program on earth day this year which will change the composition of the cities waste substantially. The city of Vancouver produced a study that show that even if you don't count biogenic carbon from incineration we will see methane reduced from landfill to less GHG emissions than incineration. Meanwhile as you pull the organics out of the incinerators all of a sudden the fossil derived carbon calculation goes up because all the biogenics will be gone.
Waste Incineration Used for District Heating:
One of the primary sales pitches behind waste incineration is the potential to use the steam generated from the facility for district heating. Although it is a good idea to do as much as possible to capture waste heat from buildings for use in district heating the truth is that even with their current calculations incineration is still worse than natural gas in terms of C02 emissions.
What this means is that even if every building in a neighbourhood were on natural gas, and you consider bioenergy to be carbon neutral, as in the image above taken from Metro Vancouver's consultation slides. waste incineration is still a bigger source of carbon emissions at current levels of fossil carbon.
What Does a Climate Friendly Waste Management Plan Look Like?
1. First and foremost what should be done is banning organic material from the Landfill. Given that this is the major climate concern related to landfill emissions there is no more obvious place to start in terms of addressing climate concerns.
2. Dealing with exiting methane for the next 25 years. Even if we stopped dumping organic materials in our landfills tomorrow we would continue to see methane emissions from landfill for the next 25 years. Currently about 50% of our methane emissions are captured and either flared or used in greenhouses. Some landfills are able to capture over 70% of their methane and there is reason to believe we could achieve around 80%. This methane could be converted to Liquid Natural Gas to be used by garbage trucks.
3. Getting the CO2 calculations right is fundamentally important to incentivising the ideal outcomes. Not counting CO2 from combustion of organic material creates exactly the opposite of the appropriate incentives. Properly caluculating Land based emissions is complicated but what is critical is that it is recognized that biogenic carbon exists and burning organics shold not be a focus of carbon offsets or any other climate related incentive structure. There may be good reasons to do fuel switching or other forms of biomass incineration as part of a transition off of fossil fuel extraction like for example using methane from existing landfills to get garbage trucks off diesel fuel but this should not be seen as a permanent solution just a interim step.
4. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a necissary step in climate friendly waste management. For every barrel of garbage that shows up at either a landfill or an incinerator there were somewhere between 7 and 70 barrels of garbage in the resource extraction, maunfacturing, transport, and consumption of these products. If we take a look at the true lifecycle emissions of our garbage then it become clear to see that ensuring that companies are mandated to take back there products and re-use or recycle there products. Luckily BC already has some of the best EPR legislation in the world. We must ensure that waste incineration doesn't become an obstacle to expanding and improving EPR in BC.
5. More aggressive targets are really the bottom line. The current Metro Vancouver plan anticipates a 30% increase in garbage in the next couple decades along with a 70% diversion rate (currently we are at around 50%). Ultimately our goal should be Zero Waste (100% diversion) and a reduction of the volume of garbage produced overall. This may sound impossible but just like zero car accidents these aspirational goal highlights what we do not consider acceptable. Zero Waste planning is a way of saying that wastefullness is simply un-acceptable. Moving towards Zero Waste would not only virtually eliminate our need for either landfills or incinerators but would in fact create signifigantly more local jobs. Recycling Works in the USA shows that you get more than 10 times the jobs per dollar invested in recycling and composting than in landfills or incinerators.
There are several key components to achieving zero waste. Composting all compostable organic material and a comprehensive EPR and recycling program could deal with most of our garbage. Another important piece of this is in regards to design. Everything from our homes to our iPhones could be made to be easily disassembled so that the component parts could be re-used.
For more information about Zero Waste planning visit http://zerowastebc.org/category/the-zero-waste-solution
First lets take a look at the composition of the regions waste.
As you can see organic materials like paper, food waste, yard trimmings and wood make up more than half of our garbage. When incinerated both compostable organic materials and fossil fuel derived materials release about equal amounts of CO2.
Garbage no matter what composition is a low quality source of fuel. The caloric value of these materials are very low. Waste-to-energy facilities are more carbon intensive per mega-watt hour than any form of power production including a coal fired power plant.
Claims that are made that waste incineration reduces Green House Gases (GHG) relies on an interpreting GHG accounting rules set in place by the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). GHG emissions are separated into different categories, fossil derived and land based. The land based emissions generally cover things like the normal emissions from a forest. Using this climate accounting approach means that the biological material in our waste would be considered carbon neutral. This is an issue of some debate. This article published in Science magazine, the most widely read scientific journal in North America explores this important topic.
Also this letter from 90 climate scientists to the US congress raises concern about this accounting loophole.
By not counting CO2 derived from burning organic material you are assuming that the amount of biological material remains constant. In fact this is not the case. We are rapidly using up the earths biological material. The truth is we are actually running a massive carbon debt. In fact the equivalent of 2 US football fields (1 hectare) of forest is cut down globally every second.
Even just looking at forests in BC and it is plain to see that we are not growing enough trees to replace what we have lost both through traditional forestry and now as the result of the pine beattle which has been estimated to be killing of 80% of BC’s Lodgepole Pine.
Also the issue of time frame must be considered. A recent report out of Massachusetts show that it takes almost 100 year to recapture carbon even if the same amount of biomass is planted as is being burned. This is a particular concern given that the IPCC tells us we need to virtually eliminate CO2 emissions by 2050.
Given these considerations the IPCC still clearly states that emissions from incineration of organics must be counted as a distinct category.
Therefore when talking about waste incineration it is misleading to not at the very least illustrate the amount of biogenic carbon that is being released. At the end of the day it makes no difference in the atmosphere if the emissions are from biogenic sources or fossil derived sources, either way it traps heat on the planet and we need to get down to 350ppm of carbon in the atmosphere.
Not including these numbers produces skewed results and gives people the false impression of a small carbon footprint when in fact it is quite the opposite.
Other key arguments to explore are the comparison of methane coming off a landfill to GHG emissions from incineration and the claims related to potential reductions in CO2 from home heating by using waste incineration for district heating .
Incinerators vs. Landfills?
Methane is a very problematic green house gas. It is estimated to be 21 times as potent in terms of its ability to trap heat on the planet as CO2. Dealing with Methane emissions from our landfills is very important.
There are a few things that need to be clearly understood. First of all it takes 20 - 25 years for all the methane in a landfill to dissipate. So that means that even if we stop dumping organics in the landfill tomorrow there will still be emissions for at least another 20 years. This means that no matter what else we do we have a responsibility to do everything we can to trap these methane emissions. Today about 50% of these emissions are either trapped and used in greenhouses or simply flared off as CO2. As Metro Vancouver considers waste management investment options its seems clear that the first priority should be to invest in upgrading methane capture capabilities. One proposal at Cache Creek would increase the capture rate to between 70% and 80% and would convert the Methane to Liquid Natural Gas which would be used to drive garbage trucks taking them off diesel fuel.
It is important to understand that emissions from landfill are entirely the result of organics biodegrading. Plastics in landfill remain mostly inert. The means that organics are being counted when related to landfill but they are not when related to incineration.
If for you eliminate the organics from landfill you ultimately eliminate the GHG emissions from landfill. The province of Noval Scotia has lead the way in this and banned organics from landfill in the 1990's. This has lead to a massive growth in jobs in composting. The city of Vancouver has just launched its new composting program on earth day this year which will change the composition of the cities waste substantially. The city of Vancouver produced a study that show that even if you don't count biogenic carbon from incineration we will see methane reduced from landfill to less GHG emissions than incineration. Meanwhile as you pull the organics out of the incinerators all of a sudden the fossil derived carbon calculation goes up because all the biogenics will be gone.
Waste Incineration Used for District Heating:
One of the primary sales pitches behind waste incineration is the potential to use the steam generated from the facility for district heating. Although it is a good idea to do as much as possible to capture waste heat from buildings for use in district heating the truth is that even with their current calculations incineration is still worse than natural gas in terms of C02 emissions.
What this means is that even if every building in a neighbourhood were on natural gas, and you consider bioenergy to be carbon neutral, as in the image above taken from Metro Vancouver's consultation slides. waste incineration is still a bigger source of carbon emissions at current levels of fossil carbon.
What Does a Climate Friendly Waste Management Plan Look Like?
1. First and foremost what should be done is banning organic material from the Landfill. Given that this is the major climate concern related to landfill emissions there is no more obvious place to start in terms of addressing climate concerns.
2. Dealing with exiting methane for the next 25 years. Even if we stopped dumping organic materials in our landfills tomorrow we would continue to see methane emissions from landfill for the next 25 years. Currently about 50% of our methane emissions are captured and either flared or used in greenhouses. Some landfills are able to capture over 70% of their methane and there is reason to believe we could achieve around 80%. This methane could be converted to Liquid Natural Gas to be used by garbage trucks.
3. Getting the CO2 calculations right is fundamentally important to incentivising the ideal outcomes. Not counting CO2 from combustion of organic material creates exactly the opposite of the appropriate incentives. Properly caluculating Land based emissions is complicated but what is critical is that it is recognized that biogenic carbon exists and burning organics shold not be a focus of carbon offsets or any other climate related incentive structure. There may be good reasons to do fuel switching or other forms of biomass incineration as part of a transition off of fossil fuel extraction like for example using methane from existing landfills to get garbage trucks off diesel fuel but this should not be seen as a permanent solution just a interim step.
4. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a necissary step in climate friendly waste management. For every barrel of garbage that shows up at either a landfill or an incinerator there were somewhere between 7 and 70 barrels of garbage in the resource extraction, maunfacturing, transport, and consumption of these products. If we take a look at the true lifecycle emissions of our garbage then it become clear to see that ensuring that companies are mandated to take back there products and re-use or recycle there products. Luckily BC already has some of the best EPR legislation in the world. We must ensure that waste incineration doesn't become an obstacle to expanding and improving EPR in BC.
5. More aggressive targets are really the bottom line. The current Metro Vancouver plan anticipates a 30% increase in garbage in the next couple decades along with a 70% diversion rate (currently we are at around 50%). Ultimately our goal should be Zero Waste (100% diversion) and a reduction of the volume of garbage produced overall. This may sound impossible but just like zero car accidents these aspirational goal highlights what we do not consider acceptable. Zero Waste planning is a way of saying that wastefullness is simply un-acceptable. Moving towards Zero Waste would not only virtually eliminate our need for either landfills or incinerators but would in fact create signifigantly more local jobs. Recycling Works in the USA shows that you get more than 10 times the jobs per dollar invested in recycling and composting than in landfills or incinerators.
There are several key components to achieving zero waste. Composting all compostable organic material and a comprehensive EPR and recycling program could deal with most of our garbage. Another important piece of this is in regards to design. Everything from our homes to our iPhones could be made to be easily disassembled so that the component parts could be re-used.
For more information about Zero Waste planning visit http://zerowastebc.org/category/the-zero-waste-solution