After
our field trip to Covanta, I was interested in learning more about
waste to energy plants. I was especially curious about how well they
could control emissions. I found a website that explained how WTE
facilities have to follow very strict policies under the Clean Air
Act or face closing. I was surprised to find that many even surpass
the regulations and have cleaner emissions than required.
There
are many innovative ways to control emissions that can be viewed at
this link: http://www.energyrecoverycouncil.org/waste-energy-superior-emissions-a2976
Some
techniques to keep the air cleaner include using lime spray to
counteract acidic gasses, blowing powdered carbon into gasses to
capture mercury, and converting smog causing
nitrogen oxides into nitrogen by using
ammonia in the furnace.
I
also found a website about recovered energy that reiterated and
explained some of what our tour guide at Covanta said about the
history of WTE facilities operating in the US. There are 102
facilities and the last one was opened in 2000. Not all plants are
operational today because some have been forced to close because of
the higher standards for emissions, but many are undergoing
construction to meet regulations.
The
website outlines the different types of WTE facilities: mass burn,
refuse derived fuel, and modular WTE plants. Altogether these plants
process 14% of solid waste in the US and reduce the volume of it by
up to 90% and the weight by at least 75%, converting much of it to
steam and ash. These statistics can be viewed at
http://recoveredenergy.com/d_wte.html
This post makes me wonder if there will be an increase in the creation of these facilities due to breakthroughs in emission capturing technologies. They technologies may make these facilities able to comply with the tougher emission standards.
ReplyDeleteAfter we toured Covanta, I started to question how "clean" the factories actually are. With reviewing the two websites that you posted, I began to feel more confident about the cleanliness of these facilities. It is hard for me to fully belief that these type of factories can produce safe emissions into the atmosphere. The waste to energy facilities take upon massive amounts of trash, produce energy, and then realize safe emissions to the atmosphere which seems a little uncertain to me.
ReplyDeleteIn todays world, trash will always be a big element within society. if left unprocessed, trash can become detrimental to the environment it is placed in. With breakthroughs in technology today, places like Covanta should be put into production to help out with the environment (due to their very low emissions of burning the materials) while getting rid of the tons of trash that is produced by people within urban and suburban areas. Increased amounts of these facilities will help with the struggle of pollution and ultimately be a major factor within following the ideology of the three R's; Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle.
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