Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Sweden Imports European Garbage To Power the Nation

Posted by Soulskill on from the quick-everybody-become-more-wasteful dept.

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.'"

7 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Haven't read TFA by ledow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But, how much energy does it take to move that amount of waste, from those countries, to Sweden, sort, process, and extract energy from them compared to, say, the useful energy out from the process that's heating those 250,000 homes (which doesn't seem an awful lot, and I live in the UK which is smaller but has more people in it)?

    Surely the transport costs alone would mean it would be better to buy the diesel used to transport that amount of material, then burn that directly?

    How is this "green"?

    1. Re:Haven't read TFA by Zocalo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Perhaps they are planning on avoiding the use of diesel? Most of the EU's main rail networks have been electrified for years, so if the Swedes are serious about making this environmentally efficient then I suspect they'd be looking at freighting the garbage in bulk on trains using that. As long as you can generate more power from a given train load of garbage that it takes to freight it then you are on to a winner - and that's before you consider the environmental and ecological impact of just dumping it all into landfill.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    2. Re:Haven't read TFA by gadget+junkie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      [...] So, in country like Italy disposing of garbage is a costly problem and it is not unlikely that the government would be happy to pay.

      About the cost of moving oil, well if you import your oil from Saudi, then it is cheaper to import rubbish from Italy. If oil comes from Norway via pipes probably not, but oil i definetely more expansive than garbage

      I beg to disagree. Garbage producing countries are paying to get rid of the thing, including transport costs. I do not see the Saudis paying the swedes to get rid of the oil which is staining the inside of the oil wells. In the end the Swedes are only selling a service: how to part morons from their money. Luckily, now there's an economic crisis, so we're starting incinerating plants over here in italy too.
      Pity is, they're owned and/or controlled by the municipalities, so none of those will use garbage from outside their administrative area: plants are built too small, etc.etc., so as a country the problem will remain.

      --
      "If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
  2. Great solution! by jenningsthecat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Because, of course, it contributes NO greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

    When are we going to get serious about NOT actively promoting global warming with every 'solution' we come up with? Sure, incineration reduces methane emissions, but couldn't we either recycle more, (and more efficiently), and/or just consume less?

    Our pursuit of 'shiny' is killing us.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:Great solution! by RabidReindeer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      couldn't we either recycle more, (and more efficiently), and/or just consume less?

      I'm all for that. Although since the Swedes have a garbage shortage, maybe they're already doing that reasonably well.

      As it is, they may be producing greenhouse gases, but at least they're producing them from waste that has to be disposed of anyway and not trucking in fossil fuels that require extraction, refining and transport in addition to the energy consumed in hauling waste.

      Every little bit helps.

  3. The enviromental Sweden by the_arrow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Swedes are very good at recycling and waste separation. Even McDonald et al. have different trash bins for everything.

    --
    / The Arrow
    "How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
  4. The real money is in the trash by tomhath · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Generating electricity from trash is pretty inefficient, the US had almost 200 incinerators in 1990 but roughly half of them have been shut down due to economics. The real money for Sweden is the fee for taking trash from European countries that don't have (or won't build) landfills. Still, in the long run it seems make more sense to burn it rather than just bury it even if burning is more expensive in the short term..