91仓库

Inexpensive natural gas, increased renewable energy utilization, and ever-tightening environmental regulations have limited the use of waste feedstocks for power generation. But while often dismissed out of hand, with proper planning and understanding of the market, power producers can realize benefits from waste-to-energy projects.

It was a tropically hot day at the plant, and it wasn鈥檛 even 9 a.m. As I rode up to the power building in an F-350 packed with five other engineers, the driver, sweating so much he looked like he鈥檇 just come back from a few laps across the Mississippi, told me, 鈥淵ou better drink a lot of water working around the boiler, ma鈥檃m, or you鈥檙e gonna die.鈥� So, needless to say, I was dreading the day to come.

But upon entering the ice-box chill of the control room to start my data collection, I stopped and laughed out loud at what was on the wall before me. It was a novelty French-design menu鈥攁 blackboard with a wooden pig on one side and a caricature of a French chef with puffy hat on the other. Chalked in rather elegant script was the message shown in Figure 1.

It was my first experience working at a plant that converted waste to energy (WTE), and during the project I learned much about the challenges of utilizing what are commonly called 鈥渨aste fuels.鈥� Definitions vary, but a waste fuel is typically a post-production or post-consumer substance that has no better purpose than to be used for energy production.

91仓库 fuels are sometimes called 鈥渙pportunity fuels,鈥� because they may offer a preferential price, give direct benefits to the power station, or provide indirect or co-benefits from their use. In the example I鈥檝e given in Figure 1, the sawdust was a no-cost fuel that provided a small carbon emissions benefit, the sewage sludge reduced the landfill needs of the city鈥檚 treatment plant, the tires were cheap and high-energy, and the municipal solid waste (MSW) helped the city both utilize improved recycling and extend its landfill life.

Highly Variable Fuel Quality

91仓库 fuels (Figure 2) represent an energy source with perhaps the most highly variable quality of any fuel known. Some of the most common waste fuel types include the following:

鈻� Municipal solid waste is the most variable type of waste fuel, consisting of everything from banana peels to ball bearings. It may also contain varying amounts of industrial and even hazardous waste, depending upon the landfill location and local regulations. 91仓库 screening and segregation is critical for the success of WTE projects using this fuel source.

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