SWANA: Waste to Energy Financially Beneficial to U.S.

16 January 2012

A white paper highlighting the benefits of waste to energy has been published in the U.S. by the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA).

In the paper - Waste to Energy Facilities Provide Significant Economic Benefits - SWANA said that it set out to illustrate the financial success of waste to energy operations throughout the U.S.

According to the association, more than 80 waste to energy plants throughout the U.S., allowing municipalities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and the waste they send to landfill, while also providing significant financial benefits to their communities.

In particular, the paper draws attention to a number of economic benefits communities have achieve by investing in waste to energy - such as additional revenues generated from the sale of recovered metals and renewable energy.

SWANA said that these revenue streams have been used to fund other solid waste activities as well as loan re-payment.

"This paper demonstrates the positive economic performance of many waste to energy facilities over several decades," said John H. Skinner, Ph.D. SWANA executive director and CEO.

"Other municipalities considering this technology across North America can have confidence that they can be operated in an environmentally sound manner and can actually represent an economic asset to the community," he added.

In drawing its conclusions the paper looks at a number of active facilities in the U.S. from a financial perspective.

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

One of the case studies drawn upon by the white paper is the Lancaster Solid Waste Management Authority's (LCSWMA) waste to energy facility in Pennsylvania

According to SWANA, the primary goal of the facility is minimising landfill use. The facility boasts a functional value of protecting one of the area's most valuable resources - farmland. Additionally, the facility is claimed to reduce the volume of waste processed by 90%, extending the life of the county's landfill by more than 20 years.

The Lancaster facility provides a revenue stream from the sale of electricity and powers over 30,000 area homes.

SWANA added that on average, 500 tons (454 tonnes) of ferrous metal and 16 tons (14.5 tonnes) of non-ferrous metal are removed from the processed waste and recycled each month, offering an additional revenue source.

Because of long term operating contracts and a fixed debt payment structure, the facility offers stable tipping fees for municipal waste. Lancaster County's tipping fee is $62 per ton, which SWANA said is $7 per ton less today than it was when the waste-to-energy facility first opened in 1991.

According to SWANA, over the past 20 years the Lancaster County facility has:

The original cost of the facility was $135 million and the final payment will take place in 2015.

Conclusions

According to the white paper, waste to energy facilities are economically sound investments that provide multiple financial and environmental benefits to the communities that utilise them.

Today, the majority of the nation's waste to energy facilities are owned by local governments that have invested in this critical municipal infrastructure to achieve long-term solid waste management solutions.

The association said that when properly managed such facilities offer a multitude of benefits to communities. They generate revenue through the sale of electricity, tipping fees, and profits from the sale of recovered metals, which allows for the repayment of their municipal bonds, as well as financing of other important aspects of MSW management, such as extensive recycling programs.

SWANA added that the economic success of waste to energy for several decades throughout the country should provide confidence to other communities considering this economically and environmentally sound technology.


Read More

37.5 MW Waste Gasification Facility for Connecticut
SAIC and alternative asset manager, Carlyle Energy Mezzanine Opportunities Group are to provide financing for construction of the $225 million Plainfield Renewable Energy biomass gasification project.

Waste Gasification Headed for Antarctica
Colorado based Creative Energy Systems has been awarded a subcontract by Lockheed Martin to supply its technology to the United States Antarctic Program.

Coffee Waste Gasification Brewing Up Energy in U.S.
The University of North Dakota's Energy & Environmental Research Center is leading a project to efficiently generate electricity from the gasification of coffee processing wastes.