https://reasonstobecheerful.world/waste-to-energy-sweden-power-plants/
"In the vast majority of countries, landfills are growing at an unsustainable
rate. According to the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), 40 percent
of worldwide waste ends up in open, uncontrolled dumpsites. As many as 38 of
the 50 largest landfills threaten to pollute the sea and coastal areas, while
64 million people are directly affected by them, often with severe health
problems. Perhaps worst of all, landfills’ decomposing trash spews
climate-altering methane into the atmosphere. “At the current rate, at least 10
percent of global greenhouse gas emissions will come from the world’s landfills
by 2025,” reports the ISWA.
As the world seeks out ways to shrink its open mountains of garbage, Sweden, a
country that sends less than one percent of its waste to landfills, offers an
alternate path. Much of Sweden’s success in reducing landfill waste can be
credited to its high recycling rates: between recycled solid waste and
composted organic matter, Sweden recycles nearly half of what it throws away.
What it does with the other half is what sets Sweden apart from much of the
world. Nearly all of Sweden’s non-recycled waste is burned to generate
electricity and heat. It’s a method that, while emitting CO2, is far better for
the climate than sending garbage to landfills, according to the Swedish
government and proponents of waste-to-energy technology. “Energy recovery is
the best available technology for treating and utilizing the energy in
different residual wastes that can’t easily be recycled,” says Klas Svensson, a
waste-to-energy technical advisor at Avfall Sverige, Sweden’s waste management
association. “For many other countries in Europe, it represents an opportunity
to both replace Russian gas, and at the same time phase out landfilling.” It
also happens to earn Sweden a good deal of money.
Sweden was an early adopter of waste-to-energy. Its first plant started
operating amid a post-war home-building boom in the late 1940s. The new houses
were connected to district heating networks, which generate heat at a central
location and pump it out to individual homes, rather than each house having its
own boiler. Over the years, more of the energy powering these district heating
networks was supplied by waste-to-energy power plants, with major expansions
beginning in the 1970s. Today, Sweden has 34 waste-to-energy plants supplying
1,445,000 households with heat and 780,000 households with electricity —
impressive figures for a country with a population of only 10 million."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
