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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.'"
If only forum spam could be processed into electricity.
Bloody socialists. My garbage is mine to dispose of as I see fit -- after, all I created it through my own private endeavour! To see it wrested from my hands is frankly an assault on my liberty and a chilling curb on garbage creators like me everywhere. By golly, if they take too much of my garbage, I'll be forced to move overseas.
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"?
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.
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
Meanwhile, in the United States of America, the discussion is Oil Drilling. Not trying to troll, but you guys need to get your priorities straight. It was not long ago you guys were pointing out the way forward and the world needs you to do so again.
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..
Because, of course, it contributes NO greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
We're some way off global, carbon-free energy production, as you point out. But that's not the problem this is solving.
Of course energy from garbage contributes greenhouse gases. But this is not displacing greenhouse-gas-free nuclear or wave power generation - it is reducing the dependency on high-running-cost, greenhouse-gas-producing oil / gas / coal power. So it increases sustainability to that extent. That is a good thing. And less landfill is also a good thing.
It's not about "shiny", so much as improving things where and when we can. But we need to increase reuse and recycling (in that order), and reduce waste caused by built-in obsolescence, excess packaging, and excessive consumption too.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Landfills, or as they call them in Italy: Towns.
839*929
read up on the nuclear waste disposal handled by mafia. the ship conveniently sunk off the coast of somalia.
granted they also dump stuff off the coast of italy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_'Ndrangheta
Columbus Ohio had a trash burning power plant but it got shut down in the mid 1980's because of the costs of environmental regulations.
There was one in the St Louis area, too -- my uncle worked there. He smoked four packs of Kools per day through the one lung he hadn't lost to TB and died from COPD at age 60. But I'd wager he might have had another five or ten years had he worked somewhere else.
There is a Monsanto plant in Sauget, across the river from St Louis. Before environmental regs you had to roll the windows up driving past, even in 95 degree weather and there was no car AC back then, because the air burned your lungs and made it painful to breathe. Not now, you don't smell anything driving past.
Those expensive environmental regulations are worth every penny -- not to the polluter, but to those of us who breathe. If you can't afford to clean up the messes you make, don't make the messes in the first place.
Free Martian Whores!