4M Tons of Waste = 25,000 Homes Powered

We generate a lot of trash as a society. The majority of the time it ends up in landfills or shipped overseas for a variety of purposes. What if that trash could somehow been harnessed for energy? That's the idea behind Covanta, a company developing energy-from-waste solutions. The company announced it now has its first energy-from-waste unit working in the United States under the EPA's New Source Performance Standards.

The chosen site is the Lee County Resource Recovery Facility, located in Fort Meyers, Florida. The Covanta energy-from-waste solution, says the company, lets the local municipality convert some additional 636 tons of waste daily into an additional 18 megawatts of electricity. This is an expansion of the location's prior abilities, in which it had converted "more than 4 million tons of waste in two 600-ton per day combustion units and generated enough electricity to power 26,000 homes." It can now generate enough power for 36,000 homes.

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Energy-from-waste facilities, according to Covanta, take trash and put it into combustion chambers, reducing its volume significantly. The heat from this process warms up water in tubes in the chambers, turning the liquid to steam and sending it through a turbine which generates electricity. Covanta estimates the Lee County facility alone "has prevented close to 4 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions" while producing enough electricity to "eliminate the need to burn 1 million tons of coal or 4 million barrels of oil."

See Also:
Zap Your Trash for Hydrogen
Eggshells to Energy

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Covanta
written by Julie Rossberg, October 31, 2007

Does this company have publicly traded stock?

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written by EV, October 31, 2007

I predict someone will complain about not recycling or mulching the material or about the CO2 emissions from this plant.

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written by ***, November 01, 2007

And rightfully so this isn't a sustainable process, it is doing the exact same as a landfill collecting methane and burning it to create energy, people need to understand that the three R's is heirarchical and that we should reduce before we reuse. Fort Meyers should impliment a source seperated organics to reduce the amount of garbage and use the excess money for renewable energy projects

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written by *, November 01, 2007

Good call EV

Sorry Guys this isn't new news, This com
written by Matt, November 01, 2007

http://www.montaukenergycapital.com/

What's left over
written by David Brightbill, November 01, 2007

The residue from mass burn incinerators is a very dense brick of very toxic materials. I wonder what they are doing with those? Some Florida cities are dumping the residue into the ocean and calling the resulting pile of poison an "artificial reef".

...
written by Patrick Burt, November 01, 2007

Or this:
http://www.plascoenergygroup.com/

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written by Smartest Man in the World, November 01, 2007

This is great. why isn't everybody doping this? Is there something that is not being said? Does the process also hurt the environment? Great post!

Clean? Doubtful
written by Kinglink, November 01, 2007

funny last I checked using garbage/waste as fuel produced dirty power. not "clean" power. Hearing from the creators that it's "clean" sets off a red flag because this has already been attempted a number
of times and the results were anything but "clean".

In fact a number of experiments found using garbage as a fuel source to be as dirtier than coal and oil.

Personally I think it's time to hike up out belts and start looking into nuclear power. But everyone knows Chernobyl. They don't realize that there was major problems there, and there's still 450 nuclear power stations out there that have not had the problems they've been "told" about. There's only been two major issues. And only one to have widespread consequences. Yet people still act like nuclear power will kill everyone. We have to figure out what to do with the waste of the nuclear power plants, that's true, but at the same time every energy source is dirty, and nuclear power is relatively clean compared to the others, yet everyone remains afraid for no real reason.

Still Making Up My Mind
written by Zephyr, November 01, 2007

Perhaps burning trash is a good "final alternative" for used products that can't get filtered out of the stream earlier (composting, recycling, etc.), but I still have concerns about the burning of the trash. Seems like there could be all sorts of toxic materials in the mix. Also, if this solution were to be applied on a large-scale, even the burning of organics could prove detrimental by the ton. Coal, after all, is organic. Perhaps I'm not picturing the "combustion chambers" correctly? Lastly, this is all well and good, but I really don't want one on my block.

covanta has been around
written by RS, November 01, 2007

but it's been a great investment lately.

nuclear power
written by JO, November 01, 2007

Nuclear power is very safe and very clean. However, these plants require a lot of water to cool the reactors. When the heated water is released into the water source the plant is built near, it kills or forces out the local marine life due to the drastic temperature fluctuations.

Fact is, no source of energy is perfect. We're always going to be creating waste and putting crap in the air; it's just a matter of quantity.

Something about "burning" smells bad....
written by Chris, November 01, 2007

This has to be one of the "alternate power generation" methods that I the least convinced by. I have, for some time been struggling to see how burning solid waste materials (a process which produces greenhouse gases) in order to produce energy can actually offset carbon emissions. The only way I could see this happening is if these EFW plants were to make MORE power per tonne of CO2 released that would a coal plant. If this were the case, we could get the "double whammy" of reducing our waste piles AND producing power. For now though, I am not entirely convinced that this is a true green process. I plan to do some reading about this to help me make up my mind.

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written by Alien Farmer, November 01, 2007

This sounds like something Homer Simpson came up with! You can get a good Solar System now from $8,000 to $14,000 and it will last you 30-40 years. Check out http://www.SolarCoupons.com if you don't believe me.

Hydrogen from Human Waste?
written by Hydrogen Research, August 24, 2008

The Orange County Sanitation District is about to begin converting human waste into hydrogen fuel in a first-of-its-kind attempt to turn sewage into a salable product.
http://hydrogen-fuel-cell-car.blogspot.com/2008/08/human-waste-being-transformed-into.html

the project
written by karwan l saeed, November 19, 2008

pleas i whant the procedier of working the factory

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