Waste To Power

[ropchock]

I am looking for a company that can supply waste to power equipment. I have spoken to Wheelabrator who owns and opperates 9 of these facilities here in the United States. They have essentially decided to solely opperate in the US and will not distrubute any such equipment. The concept of the these plants is simple and has been around for years, unfortunately finding equipment suppliers has been a daunting task. Does anyone have any leads?

 

[WildRiverRat]

Some waste materials like tires and rubber hoses can be finely ground and mixed with conventional fuels like coal and burned in conventional boilers. Some of the paper companies in the US burn waste wood for power. I think the acronym for waste derived fuel is RDF. Environmental consequences of burning whatever waste materials are under consideration should always be evaluated. Waste rubber can be problematic due to the presence of sulfur and other substances used in vulcanization of the rubber.

 

I've been researching this topic lately. Try the keywords "gasifier" "producer gas" "downdraft" and "fluidized bed". There are many companies ramping up to take advantage of this potentially lucrative niche.

 

[1947045]

Exactly what type waste are you planning on using in the process?

 

[prichardson]

You could try CNIM at

http://WWW.CNIM.com

They have at least 4 or 5 plants in the UK, plus a number of others throughout Europe and have done a lot of work in waste to energy CHP schemes.

 

[BillQuapp]

Gasification systems can be used and are consistent with pending EPA legislation in the USA for hazardous and oily refinery waste.

Gasification systems can also provide improved emissions over combustion systems especially those with long, high temperature residence time in the dioxin formation temperature window. Furthermore, comparing the offgas volume of a gasification system versus a combustion system, the mass flow rate is at least 1/10th due to the absence of nitrogen and often the use of enriched O2.

I can send you some papers on one small gasification system if you have interest in electric power in the 5 to 10 MW size plant, contact me at Bill@Quapp.com

 

[AtulBhalla]

You need to address some basic questions first:
1. What is the composition and amount of waste to be processed on a continuous basis....this gives you the lead to plant capacity and equipment types.
2. What are the local norms (if any) for emissions in addition to any country wide norms.
3. What is the likely revenue to be earned from the power that you sell...and are there any possibilities for other revenue streams?
Once you have at least these answers, you will be able to narrow down to a choice of technologies - which can then lead you to suppliers of equipment.
It would appear that further (new)incineration facilities by themselves are not being encouraged on account of high emissions. So you would need scrubbing systems / ESPs, etc...an alternative could be gasification, which in any case requires gas cleanup before you can combust the producer gas in a turbine or engine. If you have a market for glass products, then you could think of a vitrification or plasma option (but this last one is expensive).
So it really boils down to waste composition, availability and plant sizing. I could help identify equipment suppliers for small and economical gasification systems which are operating in this part of the world reasonably satisfactorily, if that is what you finally decide on, or even on project development for WTE projects.
Contact on atulbhalla46@hotmail.com, atulbhalla@infl.net

 

[fransLamers]

There is a lot of experience with Waste to Energy equipment with several European vendors such as Von Roll and Fichtner. But there are a lot more.

In most cases grate firing is preferred; gasification of waste has up till now not been common practice and is more expensive than grate firing. Depending of the type of waste under consideration als co-firing in cement furnaces or in coal fired power plants could be discussed.

Like AtulBhalla commented it is important to define the desired specifications and afterwards write a tender document.

Questions that surely need a lot of thought are the following:
- Does the project under consideration require a turn key approach for the total Waste to power installation or is sales per lot preferred? If so, how many lots are adviseable and who takes care of the interfaces?
- Which type of waste to energy is the preferred solution in the considered scenario? In most cases waste to electric power is not profitable. Electricity generation only turns out to be profitable at high electricity prices. On the other hand heat supply only works if there is demand from the immediate surroundings of the WTE plant.
- Which extent of flue gas cleaning is necessary.

If desired KEMA can support you in the selection process for WTE equipment vendors.

contact me at f.j.m.lamers@kema.nl

 

[Gordonba]

Foster Wheeler