Environment in multiple crises - report

[holwellcourtfarm]

Any industrial site will do. There are plenty of brownfield sites around the country, particularly in the North and West. Each major conurbation should have a waste to energy plant to save carting the stuff too far.

They combust the waste using a supply of natural gas and using forced air systems, so there is very little ash. Metals can be separated out and the left over material can be used as a construction aggregate. It is also possible to screen the emissions for various useful substances like sulphur which has a market value of its own.

Unusually this is actually an area where London was ahead of the issue in at least one case

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_EcoPark

 

[Scribus]

It isn't an issue related to their design. Dioxins are formed whenever you combust organic materials. You would get them from a garden incinerator, stubble burning, wood burning stoves, oil burning stoves, etc etc etc. The only way to avoid them completely is to use plasma incineration which is an entirely different way of incinerating something.

Compared to 1997, can we assume that dioxin scrubbers were installed in between?

 

[ollie989898]

Unusually this is actually an area where London was ahead of the issue in at least one case

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_EcoPark

The real trick would be to build these waste to energy facilities in areas where there is a lot of new build housing to be done, and then pipe the housing with hot steam from it, giving them all free heating.

 

[Scribus]

The real trick would be to build these waste to energy facilities in areas where there is a lot of new build housing to be done, and then pipe the housing with hot steam from it, giving them all free heating.

Mmmm.. Shades of 'electricity being too cheap to bother metering' there!

 

[ollie989898]

Compared to 1997, can we assume that dioxin scrubbers were installed in between?

I would assume so. Dioxins and furans are a well understood subject now and modern technology makes waste incineration a far cry from what people think they are like. The whole system is force fed air by fans, maximising the burn and there is no odour emitted.

Burning wastes (which are mostly plastic) to generate electricity makes a lot more sense than burning natural gas.

 

[ollie989898]

Mmmm.. Shades of 'electricity being too cheap to bother metering' there!

The electricity would still be sold. The steam would be free. All you need to do is install the pipes to shift it. It has been done at various scales in various parts of Europe. You need a heatsink of some kind for your steam turbines anyway. Might as well be houses and the local swimming pool rather than a cooling tower.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

The real trick would be to build these waste to energy facilities in areas where there is a lot of new build housing to be done, and then pipe the housing with hot steam from it, giving them all free heating.

On my college exchange visit to Denmark in 1986 we saw the waste incinerator at Århus which supplied free heat and hot water to all the old folks homes in the city.

 

[Scribus]

The electricity would still be sold. The steam would be free. All you need to do is install the pipes to shift it. It has been done at various scales in various parts of Europe. You need a heatsink of some kind for your steam turbines anyway. Might as well be houses and the local swimming pool rather than a cooling tower.

I'm all for waste as an energy resource, I just don't share the optimism when it comes to UK governments giving anything away for free. Revenue streams are taxable, freebies, on the whole, are not.

 

[ollie989898]

I'm all for waste as an energy resource, I just don't share the optimism when it comes to UK governments giving anything away for free. Revenue streams are taxable, freebies, on the whole, are not.

What the cronk does the government have to do with it? It's private enterprise. Fudge them. It is high time we took long term policy decisions that looked at issues holistically and with joined-up thinking.

 

[Scribus]

What the cronk does the government have to do with it? It's private enterprise. Fudge them. It is high time we took long term policy decisions that looked at issues holistically and with joined-up thinking.

Governments like to tax things, heating local homes for free will deprive them of tax revenue in form or another,whether it's state or private enterprise - they won't like it. I'm not saying it's right, just pointing out how things work.

 

[ollie989898]

Governments like to tax things, heating local homes for free will deprive them of tax revenue in form or another,whether it's state or private enterprise - they won't like it. I'm not saying it's right, just pointing out how things work.

That slap them with additional council tax or something.

 

[bluebell]

i know what will do pack up coal mining make thousands of people redundant from yes dangerous but well paid jobs, destroy communities and then import wood chip from america to burn? then also build powerstations to burn straw, also grow on good crop land crops to feed power stations to produce energy, does all that make sense oh and also dump many thousands of tons of food waste in landfill?

 

[bluebell]

if the problem of plastic waste is to be taken seriously it needs to be attacked from all directions, from direct from making products from using other allturnatives, their was a world before plastic packaging? anyone remember greaseproof paper and glass bottles also children should be educated about littering and the environment, it takes something like god forbid a war then all these problems would be solved it would be not about its not worthit but a desparate need to do so?

 

[Y Fan Wen]

if the problem of plastic waste is to be taken seriously it needs to be attacked from all directions, from direct from making products from using other allturnatives, their was a world before plastic packaging? anyone remember greaseproof paper and glass bottles also children should be educated about littering and the environment, it takes something like god forbid a war then all these problems would be solved it would be not about its not worthit but a desparate need to do so?

There is a short made in the 50s on Talking Pictures TV every now and then about being more careful with milk bottles. It said they were being manufactured at the rate of 6.4m bottles a week. So much for reusable.

 

[uztrac]

Massive amounts of biased reporting on this subject,mainly by pressure groups promoting their own agendas. The Earth can only sustain so many humans,the over population of the planet being the major problem.Not our cars or tractors,or power stations but to many people consuming limited resources.A large nuclear exchange or a virus will probably occur,then problem solved for a while.

 

[icanshootwell]

I'm all for waste as an energy resource, I just don't share the optimism when it comes to UK governments giving anything away for free. Revenue streams are taxable, freebies, on the whole, are not.

Agree our government would introduce a steam tax there will be no free lunch here.

 

[Cowabunga]

Agree our government would introduce a steam tax there will be no free lunch here.

In another life I had some business contact with a waste plant built by a Swedish company, which went bust, that was taken over by a local authority. It was a big purpose built waste recycling centre which had a large section sorting, sanitising and drying organic waste such as paper and cloth, with the aim of it being incinerated in the power plant built for that purpose. Unfortunately the reason I was there was because they were hit by the waste disposal and emissions tax of the time, which cost them something like £30 for every ton they incinerated. They were actively investigating ways to bale the waste at a sufficient density and securely enough to truck it across the road to the docks and away to Turkey. They were actually going to pay shipping and £10/ton to Turkey to take the waste and burn it, while leaving their own power plant redundant.

Things may have changed by now of course.

 

[delilah]

Are they wrong?

in some of the smallprint maybe, but in the overall message clearly not.

 

[Canada Farmer]

Any industrial site will do. There are plenty of brownfield sites around the country, particularly in the North and West. Each major conurbation should have a waste to energy plant to save carting the stuff too far.

They combust the waste using a supply of natural gas and using forced air systems, so there is very little ash. Metals can be separated out and the left over material can be used as a construction aggregate. It is also possible to screen the emissions for various useful substances like sulphur which has a market value of its own.

Would it not be the sensible idea to do this in an area close or even in city where the electricity is required rather than carting rubbish across the island and then having major infrastructure to get the electricity back? For example, is there no site in or near Central London suitable for a power station?

 

[icanshootwell]

Would it not be the sensible idea to do this in an area close or even in city where the electricity is required rather than carting rubbish across the island and then having major infrastructure to get the electricity back? For example, is there no site in or near Central London suitable for a power station?

Yes the O2 arena.