Waste To Energy Power Plants in Toronto
Waste To Energy Power Plants in Toronto
Waste To Energy Power Plants in Toronto
REPORT
CMN 432
Workshop Professor: Dianne Nubla
Group Members: Kuldeep Raval, Akash Patel, Mausami Naik,
Jigar Solanki, Avneet Saran, Maninderjit Johar
Date of Submission: April 09, 2015
Executive Summary
This recommendation report examines the feasibility of implementing waste-to-energy power
plants as a method of waste removal, as opposed to the landfills that currently house most of
Torontos waste. The recommendation is based on the evaluation of this technique from different
perspectives. All the areas of discussion are outlined below:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
Environmental Perspective:
Overfilling of landfills
Air pollution
Eradication of worse energy sources
Implementation Perspective:
Transportation and Storage of Municipal Solid Waste
Energy Generation and Distribution
Hazardous Material Management
Design Perspective
Modes of energy generation
Plant design
Constraints in a power plant
Ethical Perspective:
Human health
Energy and environment
Workplace Hazards and Safety
Political Perspective:
Government legislation
Public policies
International trades
Business Perspective:
Cost of implementation
Job opportunities
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 2
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction
10
10
11
14
15
15
16
18
8.0 Recommendations
9.0 References
17
19
20
List of Figures
Figure 1 Characteristic of WTE Power Plants
10
List of Tables
Table 1 Agreements and Disagreements on Implementing WTE plants
Table 2 Cost range of various technologies 16
Table 3 Impacts of Various labour Categories
16
Table 4 Decision Matrix
19
1.0 Introduction
The average Canadian citizen produces 777 kilograms of garbage per year, whereas the average
of all other countries is just 578 kilograms (CBC, 2013). The waste accumulating is only
increasing as time progresses and our landfills are brimming to their maximum capacity. Until
2010, Torontos garbage was shipped to the state of Michigan to be filled into landfills (The Star,
2010). The shipment only stopped because Michigan denied accepting anymore waste as their
landfills were filling up. Torontos current day garbage is transported to London to a landfill and
that location will too get filled in the near future, putting Toronto in a desperate garbage disposal
problem. In addition to the garbage problem, 17 % of Ontarios energy consumed is generated
from greenhouse gas emitting sources (Ontario Power Generation, 2010). Garbage disposal and
harmful energy generation are two issues that affect Toronto in an economic and environmental
perspective. To combat these problems, Sweden uses waste to energy power plants and because
of this they were able to reduce the amount of garbage sent to landfills to an astounding 1%
(Freden, 2014). These waste to energy power plants solve the waste disposal problem and also
generate cleaner electricity.
In order to solve Torontos garbage problem and concerns about greenhouse emitting energy
generation, we are writing a recommendation report to determine if it is feasible to implement
waste to energy power plants. The purpose of this report is to assess the waste to energy plants
from all the applicable perspective. The research from the report will cover the following
perspectives:
1. Environmental Perspective: (1) Eradication of worse energy sources (2) Overfilling of
landfills (3) Air Pollution
2. Implementation Perspective: (1) Transportation and Storage of Municipal Solid Waste
(2) Energy Generation and Distribution (3) Hazardous Material Management
3. Design Perspective: (1) Modes of energy generation (2) Plant Design (3) Constraints in
power plant
4. Ethical Perspective: (1) Human Health (2) Environment and Energy Production
(3) Workplace Hazards and Safety
5. Political Perspective: (1) Government Legislation (2) Public policies (3) International
trades
6. Business Perspective: (1) Cost of Implementation (2) Job Opportunities
These findings will help assess the feasibility of waste to energy power plants in Toronto and
provide us with the ability to recommend or reject this technology.
Using waste to energy power plants is a great way to avoid the usage of highly polluting and
non-renewable energy sources.
2.4 Environmental Perspective conclusion
There were many factors to be considered from the environmental perspective for implementing
waste to energy plants.
Table 1 Table listing agreements or disagreements of implementing WTE plants
Point
Overfilling of
landfills/ Waste
management
Air pollution
Eradication of worse
energy sources
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Based on the table above, I have come to the conclusion to recommend the implementation of
waste to energy power plants. A waste to energy plant is a better source for energy than many of
the current sources we use in Toronto. Furthermore, it eliminates the current problem we face
with landfills. Like anything, there are cons to this project but the benefits greatly outweigh the
risks.
energy plant. The burning of the waste all starts in the furnace (Integra Global Green Energy,
2011). In the post combustion chamber, the burning of the waste is fully completed and products
are formed. The products then proceed through the turbines to generate electricity. The emission
control area is where the remains from the combustion sit (Columbia University, 2011). These
vital components are a must and should be taken into consideration when designing the power
plant for Toronto.
4.3 Constraints in Plant Design
Wastes to energy power plants have certain design constraints in order to optimize efficiency. For
a plant to be optimized it must have a minimum of 320 000 to 400 00 tons of waste to burn. Also
it must have a connection to local grid lines for electricity delivery, transportation from and to
the plant, and a sufficient water source for cooling purposes (Keppel Seghers, 2011). Along with
all that, the plant must run 8000 hours annually in order to be efficient (Upsala Univesitet, 2012).
The Greater Toronto area produces 2000 tonnes of garbage a day (CBC News, 2010). After doing
the math, Toronto will require two medium sized power plants that burn 350 000 tonnes of
garbage per year to accommodate the waste accumulated annually. The work of premier Dalton
McGuinty made Ontario a coal free province in the year 2015 (Desmog Canada, 2014). This
movement left the coal plants abandoned and to corrode away. These abandoned coal plants
could easily be converted to waste to energy power plants. Their location is perfect geologically
as they have transportation from and to the plant for the coal and they have connections to the
gridlines for electricity delivery. The only element missing is a sufficient water source. Due to
the fact that Toronto is close to a great lake, water is never an issue and can be delivered with
ease. With most of the work already done for the plant, implementing waste to energy plants in
the abandoned coal plants is a plausible possibility.
4.4 Design Perspective Conclusion
The analysis of the design impacts using the three criteria results in favouring the
implementation of waste to energy power plants in Toronto. It is feasible to use the incineration
process for the waste to energy plant as it dominates the other two processes in the chosen
criteria. The plant should also contain the 4 major components: the furnace, post combustion
chamber, gas turbine and an emission control system. The abandoned coal plants of Ontario are
an ideal location as they are well equipped to implement these wastes to energy power plants.
Therefore, after taking these facts into consideration, I believe waste to energy power plants are
the perfect solution to Torontos garbage problem.
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short. Secondly, the incineration plants, as stated in the previous paragraph, only produce nontoxic carbon dioxide and water as waste. This means that the amount of damage they do to the
environment is relatively much lesser. For these reasons, looking at the protection and
sustainability of the environment and limited energy sources, the waste-to-energy plants are a
better
and
more
ethical
choice.
5.3 Workplace Hazards and Safety
The operation of both landfills and WTE incineration plants requires manual labour. Therefore,
the safety of all the workers should be one of the main areas to be considered when making a
decision. A case study at an incineration plant in Finland reported that employees working at the
site are exposed to high levels of endotoxins, microbes, dust, and noise levels that exceed
threshold values (Kari & Outi, 2005). On the other hand, a case study at a landfill in Poland
showed that employees are exposed to bacterial and fungal aerosols (Kalwasiska, Burkowska,
& Brzezinska, 2013). Both conditions are harmful to the workers. However, at a landfill site,
many workers are needed at the sorting station. Their job requires them to sort out garbage bags
one after the other. At an incineration plant, most machines are automated, leaving minimal
manual labour for the workers. According to both studies, safety equipment is provided at both
sites. However, because workers do not need to manually handle the waste with their hands, the
work at the WTE plants is relatively safer. Therefore, I would again recommend the
implementation of the WTE plants in Toronto.
5.4 Ethical Perspective Conclusion
Judging from the three areas discussed above, I would like to go ahead with recommending the
WTE plants as the waste disposal treatment in Toronto. It is a much better technology when
protecting human health, sustaining the environment and non-renewable energy resources, and
for the safety of the workers. Furthermore, it also helps get rid of the garbage that piles up and
takes up space in the landfills. Implementing WTE plants will help in removing waste from
these lands, so that they can be used for other means that benefit the society. Looking back at the
definition of ethics written at the beginning, these reasons are valid enough to say that WTE
system is the right choice.
13
communities. WTE plants are overall in favor of the community and should be considered as a
very plausible solution.
15
For instance, it was estimated by using Pyrolysis technology in the new plant of Uruguay, the
capital cost will be approximately US $420 million (Rodriguez, 2011). Furthermore, waste-toenergy plants will generate electricity from waste which will save land and contribute to the
citys revenue. There has been evidence from The Lancaster Solid Waste Management Authority
in Pennsylvania that stated, 7.5 million tons of waste was processed in the plant which generated
$256 million in electric revenue and protected 190 acres of farmland (SWANA, 2012).
Therefore, city of Toronto will profit from this new plant.
7.2 Job Opportunities
The new waste-to-energy plant will not only create jobs in the waste-to-energy sector but even
outside of this sector. The table below shows how these waste-to-energy plants impacted job
creation
(Berenyi,
2013):
Table 3 The impacts of different types of labor categories
Category
Direct Labor Impacts
Direct Labor Earnings
Job Multiplier Impact
Labor Income Multiplier Impact
Impact
381 workers in 6 plants
$32.7 million in wages, salaries and benefits
558 full time jobs produced outside WTE
sector
$27.4 million in wages, salaries and benefits
outside the WTE sector
16
17
8.0 Conclusion
The goal of this report was to assess the feasibility of implementing waste to energy plants in
Toronto by looking at it through various different perspectives. We believe that it is a very good
idea to implement these WTE plants in Toronto. The usefulness of these plants were assessed
through the following perspectives:
All the different perspectives that were researched agreed that the benefits of implementing
waste to energy plants in Toronto outweigh the risks. Based on the facts, our group agrees that it
is feasible to implement this technology in Toronto and strongly recommends it.
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9.0 Recommendations
Table 4 Recommendations by all the group members
Name
Kuldeep Raval
Avneet Saran
Akash Patel
Mausami Naik
Jigar Solanki
Maninderjit Johar
Perspective
Environmental
Implementation
Design
Ethical
Political
Business
Verdict
Recommend
Recommend
Recommend
Recommend
Recommend
Recommend
As seen by the table above, our team strongly recommends proceeding with implementing waste
to energy power plants in Toronto. This is a great solution to the garbage and green house
emitting energy generation problem. Although the research was carried out well, there may be
some limitations to the content as this is still a fairly new technology. The development of this
technology only really started in the early 21st century (Solid Waste Association of North
America, 2012). The next steps would be to actually look into the design and implementation
factors and proceed to higher authorities for the approval of this project. Also, a good idea would
be to gather a team that closely studies the existing plants in Sweden. After this, a team would
work closely with Swedish authorities to plan a path for implementation. The steps mentioned
above are ideally what should follow this report. In order for the organization to be successful in
this project, it is a must that they refer to the recommendations and educate themselves with the
conclusions drawn in this report.
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