Umesh K Baveja B.Tech, MBA

1
Waste to Energy (WTE) Is it the solution to
Indias waste problem?

• Umesh K Baveja B.Tech, MBA
• December 2004, Bangalore

2
WTE in India Background

• First ambitious program to encourage WTE launched
  in 1995
• To demonstrate that WTE is possible
• Long-term target of producing 1700MW of energy
  from priority waste streams
• Operated under the aegis of National BioEnergy
  Board (NBB), Ministry of Non-conventional Energy
  Sources (MNES)
• Has an elevated status due to the contribution to
  reducing greenhouse gas emissions and in
  encouraging the integration of best practice
  waste collection and transfer to Energy
• 16 cost sharing projects usage of
  Bio-methanation
• To establish a fiscal and financial regime
  necessary for WTE

3
Energy from Waste

• Potential of Power Generation in India from Waste
• Urban and Municipal Wastes 1000 MW
• Industrial Wastes 700 MW
• (Dairy, Distillery, Press Mud, Tannery,
• Pulp and Paper and Food Processing
• Industries)
• TOTAL 1700 MW

• Common perception WTE is most applicable to
  India
• Reduces waste by 60 - 90
• Recovers resources
• Aids safe disposal of waste avoids pollution of
  land, water and air
• Reduces Greenhouse gases

? But, is WTE the solution for Indias waste
problem?
4
Physical Characteristics of typical MSW in India
Contents Available in
Paper 4.68
Plastics 0.71
Metals 0.64
Glass 0.45
Ash and Fine Earth 40.03
Total Compostable matter 38.75
5
Chemical Characteristics of typical MSW in India
Characteristics availability
Moisture content 25.2
Organic matter 23.4
Carbon 13.08
Nitrogen 0.58
P as P2O5 0.66
K as K2O 0.70
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Composition of urban solid waste in Indian cities
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Is WTE the answer to Indias waste problem? (1)

• Indian waste unsuitable for production of energy
• 80 of the waste in India is organic and moist
• Have low Calorific value (800 - 1,050 Kilo
  calories per kilogram)
• Experience in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai (see
  notes page)
• WTE technologies are regarded as unused,
  suspect technologies
• WTE tech introduced in India so far are NOT based
  on a world-wide tried and tested model
• Technologies like bio-methanation, incineration,
  combustion etc have toxic by-products that cause
  serious environmental problems like Acid rain, fog

? WTE technologies / projects are environment
unfriendly
8
Is WTE the answer to Indias waste problem? (2)

• Cost of a typical 5MW WTE plant Rs 40 crores
• Consumption 150 tons of urban waste for each MW
  of electricity

Which is an investment of Rs 8 crore per MW ie,
FOUR times cost of conventional Thermal power!!

And, the subsidy exceeds 50 of total project
cost!
Which is
An unjustifiable public investment of Rs 20 crore
for 800 tonnes of urban waste disposal! And a
cost that should be borne specifically by the
waste generator
? WTE projects are economically unviable in India
9
WTE Projects in Maharashtra
Municipal Corporation Promoter Capacity
Municipal Council of Greater Mumbai a) MSW Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai b) Waste Management Ind. Ltd, Mumbai c) EDL India Ltd, New Delhi 14.98 MW 10.0 MW 21.0 MW
Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corp Not Finalised 5.52 MW
Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corpn Soundcraft Indus, Mumbai 3.9 MW
TOTAL 51.88 MW
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WTE plant Lucknow

• 5 MW Power Generation Project for MSW
• Promoter
• Asia Bio-Energy (A consortium of companies in
  Austria,Germany, Singapore and India)
• Technology
• BIMA (Biogas tech) from Austria plus some
  equipment from Germany
• Capacity
• 5.0 MW (nett), 5.6 MW (gross) power, 80 TPD
  manure
• Input waste
• About 500 TPD
• Project cost
• Rs 73 crore

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WTE plant Lucknow
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WTE major processes involved

• Pre-treatment Removal of inerts / inorganic /
  non-biodegradable matter and homo-genisation of
  feedstock
• Energy Recovery Anaerobic Digestion /
  Gasification / Combustion
• Post-Treatment Stabilisation of treated /
  processed material for final disposal /
  utilisation

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Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (1)

• Incineration is the most costly discard
  management option
• Incinerators are at least two times more
  expensive than landfills

Capital costs of incineration v/s recycling and
composting
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Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (2)

• Incinerators contribute to countries'
  indebtedness
• In the US, on a per ton basis, sorting and
  processing recyclables alone sustains 11 times
  more jobs than incineration
• Incinerators are capital-intensive rather than
  labor-intensive
• While Recycling / Composting is more
  labor-intensive than capital-intensive

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Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (3)

• Wet organic materials, common in a country like
  India, may reduce the capacity of or shut down
  incinerators
• In 1986 in Delhi, an incinerator was closed
  within a week after its completion because the
  garbage from the surrounding communities was too
  wet to burn. The facility cost more than US10
  million to build!!

16
Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (4)

• Incineration will adversely impact the informal
  sector and the informal sector will diversely
  impact incineration
• Incinerators will impose hardships on if not
  jeopardize waste pickers livelihoods
• Energy revenues from incinerators are often
  over-estimated

17
Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (5)

• Incinerators may require transfer stations, which
  is an additional cost
• Pollution control equipment and pollution
  regulation and enforcement are expensive and
  increase costs
• Incinerators are major contributors to air
  pollution
• release pollutants such as dioxins, heavy metals,
  oxides of nitrogen, sulfur oxides, particulate
  matter, and numerous volatile organic compounds
  into the atmosphere
• Neither high temperatures nor pollution control
  equipment can make incinerators safe

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Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (6)

• Incinerators produce a toxic ash that requires
  disposal in engineered landfills, significantly
  adding to costs
• Ash management poses severe environmental and
  economic problems
• Incinerators often receive far less tonnage than
  they were designed to process, leading to
  financial problems
• Example Montgomery County, Maryland, US

19
Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (7)

• Lack of infrastructure in lesser industrialized
  countries may doom incinerators to financial
  failure
• Citizens and taxpayers pay for incinerators'
  financial problems
• Construction of incinerators generally ties
  governments into long-term contracts guaranteeing
  delivery of waste tonnage to the facilities at a
  specified fee (these fees usually escalate as
  time passes)

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Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (8)

• Incinerators hamper least-cost options such as
  recycling
• Materials commonly burned in incinerators such as
  paper, garden discards, and some plastics have a
  much higher value when used as raw materials than
  when used as fuel
• Incineration consultants and "experts" can add
  millions to the costs

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Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (9)

• Incineration's high investment costs increase
  potential for corruption
• Incinerators not only put the livelihoods of
  waste pickers at risk, but they also reduce
  overall employment and business opportunities
  from reuse and recycling

Job creation in the US from reuse and recycling
versus disposal
22
Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (10)

• Incineration has high public health costs
• Numerous studies have reported increased
  incidence of cancers, respiratory ailments, and
  congenital birth defects among residents residing
  near incinerators
• Incineration wastes resources and energy
• If the United States burned all its municipal
  waste it would contribute less than 1 of the
  countrys energy needs (Source Dr. Paul Connett,
  Municipal Waste Incineration A Poor Solution
  for the Twenty First Century)

23
Incineration is a losing Financial proposition
for all (10)

• Incinerators lower property values
• truck traffic, blowing trash, birds and rats
  attracted to trash, noise, odor, and pollution
  caused by incinerators can all contribute to a
  drop in property values
• Incineration encourages continued waste
  generation, diverts attention from real clean
  production and zero waste solutions, and
  reinforces the notion that unwanted discards are
  a local community responsibility and cost

24
In summary, three to five times more energy can
be saved by recycling materials than by burning
them!!
25
So, what are the alternatives?

• Recycling
• Composting

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The Alternatives Examples (1)

• Mumbai
• A neighborhood participating in the Advanced
  Locality Management program in Andheri, Mumbai
  reduced its garbage disposal by half within two
  years (source Shiv Kumar, Mumbaiites resort to
  self-help to tackle civic issues, India Abroad
  News Service, June 5, 2000)
• Chennai
• A community-based organization, Exnora
  International, has developed a decentralized
  recycling / composting approach that has the
  potential to divert 90 of municipal discards

? High waste prevention and diversion levels are
possible and cost-effective
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The Alternatives Examples (2)

• Pune
• Municipal government granted adult waste pickers
  authority to collect recyclable scrap by
  endorsing photo identification membership cards
  for a newly formed waste picker collective
• Further promoted public awareness of a new
  discards segregation system in which the waste
  pickers collect, at curbside, segregated organic
  and recyclable materials
• Households pay a mandatory fee to the waste
  pickers in return for this service. This program
  has benefited everyone involved (source Poornima
  Chikarmane and Lakshmi Narayan, Formalising
  Livelihood Case of Wastepickers in Pune,
  Economic and Political Weekly, October 7, 2000)

? Collecting segregated recyclables and organics
for composting
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The Alternatives Examples (3)

• Patna
• Provides little door-to-door waste collection,
  and does not operate any composting facilities or
  sanitary landfills
• Some of the apartment dwellers have created an
  innovative way to handle their organic discards
  using their balconies and window sills
• Residents combine organic waste, soil, floor
  sweepings, and dried moss from roof tops in clay
  pots. The mixture matures into compost in three
  to four months. Residents use the finished
  compost to grow flowers, ornamental plants,
  spinach, and tomatoes (source I. Maumdar,
  India, Warmer Bulletin, Number 34, August 1999,
  p. 3.)

? Vermicomposting
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Chennai Incineration vs Recycling approach
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The key to healthy communities is to redirect the
millions of dollars in investments slated for
incineration systems into waste prevention and
reduction and zero waste systems that maximize
both return on investments and economic
development opportunities