From CityAM's What the other papers say this morning:
THE TIMES - As much as 17 per cent of Britain's electricity needs could be met by burning rubbish and the methane produced from landfill sites. David Palmer-Jones, chief executive of Sita UK, which handled nine million tonnes of waste last year – 8 per cent of the total – said that Britain was failing to grasp a huge opportunity.
OT1H, "He would say that, wouldn't he?", but OTOH I am quite sure that there is something in it. Other countries have been doing this for years, so it can't be too difficult to work out whether it's economically viable or not. Plus it winds up Greenies and NIMBYs no end, so that's a bonus.
Monday, 12 July 2010
"UK should use waste for power"
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16 comments:
And let's not forget that burning methane from landfill sites is not just carbon-neutral, it's carbon NEGATIVE, as methane is a greenhouse gas far more powerful than CO2...
GC, it's certainly "greenhouse gas negative", for the reasons you explain, but it doesn't affect the amount of carbon one bit :-)
Thats the madness of the current waste management regulations - you can't burn your waste even if you had a proper burner/boiler, and it would provide your business with cheap heat (thus reducing carbon emissions). So a company that generates lots of timber offcuts (a furniture manufacturer say) is not allowed to have a burner in its factory, and heat it with the waste wood. It must all go in a skip and be tipped in a landfill (at vast expense).
I go past a firm every day that makes wooden packing crates. They have a huge skip full of wood offcuts outside. I've asked if I could have some to use or to burn in my stove, and been told 'No, we aren't allowed to let anyone have it once it goes in the skip. Waste Management Regs you see.'
Of course the fact that the govt gets landfill tax, and VAT on fuel has nothing to do with forbidding people to recycle like this. No, not at all..............
Ner! Needs more careful thought this one.
Burning waste might be good if the net effect was postive. But it is WASTE. That is, no one wants it. If I put waste in your back garden how much will you pay me for doing that? This guy is lobbying for his own monopoly. And success for him will only encourage more waste. Don't we need less waste. And more wealth? How much will you pay me to be more wasteful ? Less than nothing should be the correct answer. Also it is not as efficient as not creating as much waste in the first place and using that saving to reduce emissions and energy use. Der!
The only "waste" that is useful is that from spent nuclear fuel assemblies. This is not really waste of course. It is "free energy". Trouble is the socialists did some great marketing and convinced everyone it was really realy really dangerous and could never be used for fuel even though it can in what is known as a fast breeder reactor which in the end result in almost zero non useful nuclear waste. Woking design prototypes have been shelved since the 80's and only require development for production to go ahead. Der 2!
Yep, let's stink the whole place out.
S, exactly, more good points.
RS, most of this 'waste' starts off its life as 'packaging' which is there for a very good reason in most cases. I'm not sure else how you'd get your a lot of your food home. Or else you might as well become a complete eco-fascist and ban everything.
JH, why? There's no reason why such plants would be in residential areas and the smelly or poisonous stuff can be filtered out. Either it's economically viable or it isn't, and there's only one way to find out.
@ RobinSmith: No, actually the opposite - lots of 'waste' is wanted by people, they are not allowed by law to have it because of the stupid waste management regs. According to them anything that is a by-product of the manufacturing process, even if its useful to some-one, and they would pay you for it, is still waste and can only be disposed of by licenced waste disposal firms. Which means landfill, by and large.
I have come to the conclusion they are not trying to encourage recycling at all, because the rules actively work against it. They merely want to control everyone, and tax them for doing things they want to do anyway, and fine them if they don't have the correct paperwork.
Of course the fact that the govt gets landfill tax, and VAT on fuel has nothing to do with forbidding people to recycle like this. No, not at all.....
No, I don't think that has half so much to do with it, compared to the lobbying power of the waste industry. They are the ones that stand to lose most from people burning their own waste.
B, Sobers' point is perfectly valid. Landfill Tax is one of the most insane taxes we have.
Now as it happens, waste incineration can probably be done much more efficiently and cleanly in larger plants so fair enough. But burning wood is probably pretty harmless, unless it's impregnated with something nasty.
I wasn't querying the validity of S's point. It's just that Landfill Tax, for all that it might be an insane tax, is financially pretty small beer compared to the total tax take, so a relaxation of rules about burning wood would affect, proportionally, the waste industry far more than the gov't. Similarly, white asbestos (which HSE is still banging on about, with our money, despite being told to shut up).
B, I suppose it would help the discussion if any of us knew what the 'waste industry' actually does with the wood. Burn it or turn it into chipboard? Or do they just want to be paid for carting it off and land filling it?
I'm as happy bashing corporatists as I am bashing the government of course, but we are getting off the topic that waste incineration seems to be a good idea.
I agree with Mr Palmer-Jones. Recycle the glass, aluminium and maybe steel, and burn the rest. Forget all this nonsense about recycling paper and plastic.
We should site the incinerators far away from population centres, obviously. Right in the middle of the nearest green belt should do nicely.
OK, so obviously he would say that wouldn't he. But. Every year we dig more holes (extraction of sand, gravel, etc,) than there is waste to fill them. When those holes are lined, filled with domestic waste (minus the easily recoverable metals), and sealed, anaerobic digestion takes place and methane is produced. Tapping off that methane to use as fuel is simple, it is already at many places around the country.
Why isn't this done as a matter of course? That's a question for our Parish Council in Westminster.
AC, it's down to economics. Some stuff is worth recycling, other stuff rots (for methane or compost) and other stuff can be burned. As to where the incinerators should be sited, I guess normal industrial areas at the periphery would be best :-)
VFTS, of course we have plenty of holes, that isn't the issue - the issue is separating "stuff that rots' (vegetable matter, won't burn but good for methane) and "stuff that burns" (paper and plastic, which doesn't rot quite so well).
As far as I know,(which is 'not very') the UK already captures any amount of methane from landfill sites. Modern incinerators are extremely efficient, so there's no smell, smoke etc to worry about.
Because of this, the EU hate them, and forbid their use as much as possible. See Scotland, Scottish Power and pelletised sewage. The heat can be used to generate electricity or whatever is deemed useful for the energy usage.
The dead hand of the EU is evident all over this stuff, always in a negative sense.
Robin,
Don't we need less waste. And more wealth?
It depends what you mean by waste.
Here's some wastes from recycling:-
1. Extra bins that have to be made
2. Recycling centres to sort through the rubbish.
3. Your time in sorting through rubbish.
4. The cost of hiring people at recycling centres to sort through it all again.
5. The space next to my house to store the bins.
There's about 2 thing that's worth recycling: aluminium and glass. You don't have to worry about tin as it is magnetic and can be automatically sorted out anyway. Plastic takes a lot of sorting a processing, and at the end of it, produces some quite low grade material. It's hardly worth it.
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