Slashdot Mirror
Sweden Imports European Garbage To Power the Nation
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that Sweden's program of generating energy from garbage is wildly successful, but recently its success has also generated a surprising issue: There is simply not enough trash. Sweden has recently begun to import about eight hundred thousand tons of trash from the rest of Europe per year to use in its power plants. Sweden already brings trash from Norway and hopes to get garbage from Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic countries. Sweden creates energy for around 250,000 homes and powers one-fifth of the district heating system. Its incineration plants offer a look into the future where countries could potentially make money off of their trash instead of dumping. Landfilling of organic materials – a highly inefficient and environmentally degrading system (PDF) — has been forbidden in Sweden since 2005 and emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from landfills has fallen dramatically (PDF). 'I hope that we instead will get the waste from Italy or from Romania or Bulgaria or the Baltic countries because they landfill a lot in these countries,' says Catarina Ostlund, a senior advisor for the country's environmental protection agency. 'They don't have any incineration plants or recycling plants, so they need to find a solution for their waste.'"
But, how much energy does it take to move that amount of ...
It can't be worse than coal because it doesn't take any energy to break it loose from the earth and crush it, and the labor at the small scale is "free" you don't have to pay people to put trash in a trash can (but at higher levels a truck of coal costs about as much to drive as a truck of garbage) Admittedly the energy content per Kg is probably a bit lower so its not going to be as much of a win over coal as you'd guess. But it certainly won't be worse.
The real killer energy cost / green issue is exhaust emissions scrubbing. Not selling electronic devices with lead based solder doesn't mean all durable goods made with lead solder instantly disappeared. Plenty of things in the trash that you wouldn't want to breathe after burning. You'd like to think special bins for plastic and electronics magically means the "food refuse" bin is pristine pure 100% lead and plastic and paint free, but its not, and the required scrubbing just in case is expensive.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
All you have to do to understand the true capitalist way you can deal with garbage is go to Napoli in Southern Italy, where the mafia own the garbage business.