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PRINTAs the agency responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of energy policy in the territory, the V.I. Energy Office fully supports the utilization of waste-to-energy technology as a component, in conjunction with wind and solar power, of the Virgin Islands’ energy portfolio. The conversion of municipal solid waste to a usable fuel represents a commercially-proven, renewable source of energy and provides a desirable alternative to oil-burning generating units for meeting utility base load requirements. The Energy Office is presently leading efforts to reduce the territory’s dependence on fossil fuel as a source of energy by 60 percent from the benchmark established in 2009. In achieving this goal, we anticipate that at least 12 percent of our energy needs can be met through waste-to-energy conversion of municipal solid waste.
While it may seem counterintuitive to suggest that clean energy can be derived from burning garbage, real world experience and emissions monitoring demonstrates that waste-to-energy facilities emit significantly less pollutants than fossil fuel power plants burning coal, petroleum coke or oil. The waste-to-energy industry in the United States changed dramatically in 1995, following EPA’s development of Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards under the Clean Air Act for municipal solid waste combustors. Modern waste-to-energy plants on average produce 95 percent less pollutants than similar facilities did prior to 1995. As an example, in 1990, emissions of dioxins by waste-to-energy facilities in the U.S. totaled 4,260 grams per year. By the year 2000, as a result of stricter regulations, annual emission of dioxins from all waste-to-energy facilities in the U.S. totaled just 12 grams, a decrease of more than 99 percent.
The Alpine Energy Group facility as proposed will produce less harmful air pollutants during its operation than any of the Water and Power Authority’s current oil-fuelled power generating facilities. That is in addition to the 400,000 barrels of oil that will no longer need to be consumed at the Richmond Power Plant. To the benefit of the densely populated residential communities that surround the current plant, that portion of our power production would be shifted to a cleaner, more modern facility within the industrial zone as some have advocated for. The Alpine Energy Group project would create fewer pollutants in the generation of 16 megawatts of power on St. Croix than the Richmond Power Plant currently creates to generate the same amount of power.
Finally, waste-to-energy facilities are recognized as cleaner alternatives to landfills, even those that are properly designed and permitted. Again, while it may seem counterintuitive, the combustion of biodegradable products such as wood, paper and food wastes produces comparatively less greenhouse gas emissions than if that waste was allowed to decompose. The decomposition of biomass produces methane gas, a potent contributor to global climate change. Countries of the European Union have long acknowledged waste-to-energy as the preferred means of preserving valuable land space and achieving compliance with Kyoto Protocol mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously producing valuable energy. This technology eliminates concerns of landfill leachate contaminating our groundwater and coast lines or of underground fires releasing toxic gases into the atmosphere without any pollution controls.
There is a reason that waste-to-energy technology has emerged as a preferred alternative to the status quo. That decision is based on understanding the science and technology involved and analyzing the real impact of these facilities in the communities where they are located. The technology has matured significantly in the past two decades and is an improvement over our current solid waste management and power generating facilities. The opportunity to purchase electricity at 14 cents per kilowatt-hour and to break the stranglehold that our dependence on fuel oil has on the territory’s economy is too valuable a proposition to reject without sound, rational alternatives.
Editor’s note: Karl Knight is the director of the Virgin Islands Energy Office.
Here are 2 articles that Karl Knight should read as he is obviously not up to speed on the hazards of the WTE folly Alpine is proposing:
Incinerators in Disguise
Incinerators with names like "gasification," "pyrolysis," "plasma arc," and "waste-to-energy" all emit dioxins and other harmful pollutants, despite industry claims that they are "green" technologies.
Dozens of start-up companies are working to site a new generation of toxic "incinerators in disguise" in communities throughout the world. These are incinerators with names like gasification, pyrolysis, and plasma arc that are promoted by waste companies as "safe" and "green" for community health and the environment. Many of today's incinerator companies claim that they can safely, cost-effectively and sustainably turn any type of material such as household trash, tires, medical waste, biomass, refuse-derived-fuel and hazardous waste into electricity and fuels like ethanol and bio-diesel. Some companies go so far as to claim that their technology is "zero emissions" or "pollution-free" and not, in fact, incineration at all. However, all of these technologies emit dioxins and other harmful pollutants into the air, soil and water, and they are defined as incineration by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Union[1].
Incinerator technologies such as plasma, pyrolysis and gasification do have some different processes when compared to conventional mass-burn incineration. While mass-burn incinerators combust the waste in a single chamber, these incinerators typically heat the waste materials at high temperatures in one chamber with less oxygen present, and then burn the waste gases in a separate chamber connected to a smoke stack. Regardless of the technology used, the core destructive impacts of all types of incinerators remain the same.
Incinerators negatively impact public health, local economies, the climate and the environment. The short track record of pyrolysis, plasma and gasification incinerator technologies has shown even higher costs, less dependability, and inconsistent energy generation. In addition, data show that dioxins, furans and other toxins are formed in these systems, and in some cases, toxins are formed in higher quantities than in conventional mass-burn incinerators.
Incinerators - Link: http://www.no-burn.org/article.php?list=type&type=84
Burning waste has many negative environmental, social and health consequences.
Waste incinerators do all of the following:
Poison our environment, bodies, and food supply with toxic chemicals. Incinerators produce a variety of toxic discharges to the air, water and ground that are significant sources of a range of powerful pollutants, including dioxin and other chlorinated organic compounds that are well-known for their toxic impacts on human health and the environment. Many of these toxins enter the food supply and concentrate up through the food chain.
Produce toxic byproducts. In addition to air and water emissions, incinerators create toxic ash or slag that must then be landfilled. This ash contains heavy metals, dioxins, and other pollutants, making it too toxic to reuse, although industry often tries to do so.
Undermine waste prevention and recycling. The use of incinerators feeds a system in which a constant flow of resources needs to be pulled out of the Earth, processed in factories, shipped around the world, and burned in our communities. This one-way linear system of resource extraction, production, transportation, consumption and disposal is a system in crisis. We simply cannot sustain this pattern indefinitely on a finite planet.
Contribute to global climate change. Incinerators emit significant quantities of direct greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, that contribute to global climate change. They are also large sources of indirect greenhouse gases, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, non-methane volatile organic compounds, and sulfur dioxide. In fact, incinerators emit more CO2 per megawatt-hour than any fossil fuel-based power source - including coal-fired power plants! But their greatest contribution to climate change is through undermining waste prevention and recycling programs, and encouraging increased resource extraction.
Waste energy and destroy vast quantities of resources. People selling "waste-to-energy" incinerators claim that generating energy by burning trash is a win-win solution to our waste and energy crises. The truth, however, is that incinerators actually waste energy. When burning materials that could be reused, recycled, or composted, incinerators destroy the energy-saving potential of putting those materials to better use. Recycling, for instance, saves 3 to 5 times the energy that waste incinerator power plants generate. Incinerators are also net energy losers when the embodied energy of the burned materials is taken into account. For these reasons, "waste-to-energy" plants would be more aptly named "waste-of-energy" plants.
Drain money from local economies to pay for expensive, imported technology, and provide far fewer jobs than zero waste programs. Incinerators are bad for local economies. As the most expensive waste handling option, they compete with recycling and composting for financing and materials, and they only sustain 1 job for every 10 at a recycling facility.
Hide the evidence of dirty and unsustainable industries. Incinerators allow dirty industries to get rid of their toxic waste and hide the impacts of their practices. These industries depend on incineration to fuel our continued use of this system of unsustainable production and consumption.
Violate the principles of environmental justice. Incinerators are disproportionately sited in poor or rural communities and areas of least political power. There are currently hundreds of proposals to build incinerators in Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.
Better alternatives to incinerating materials exist, and many communities where people are organized into strong grassroots movements have been able to defeat incinerators. Most things can and should be safely and economically recycled or reused, and we also need to simply use less and redesign our products so that they are toxic-free and built to last. This is the heart of a zero waste strategy that eliminates the negative environmental, social and health impacts of incinerator use.
Mr. Knight's Op-Ed piece unfortunately clearly demonstrates a severe lack of understanding of both the economics surrounding solid waste management, and the true amount of power that could be produced from a waste-to-energy (WTE) operation processing the VI's municipal solid wastes (MSW). Independent WTE industry experts, who are advocates of WTE, have stated that the maximum power we might expect from such a WTE operation processing the VI's current levels of MSW, and data from existing operations, show that we could not expect more than ~60,000 megawatt-hours annually, contrary to the contractual 91,646 megawatt-hours in WAPA and AEG agreements. That is less than 2/3 the obligated amount.
Independent experts are those not invested in a particular outcome or scenario for the VI. Yet, amazingly and disturbingly, WAPA and VIEO / Mr. Knight would instead cite figures from a company that has never put a plant on-line before -- Alpine. Along with the legal questions that continue to swirl around the Alpine procurement process, for those charged with representing the VI public's interest to ignore information from industry experts and data from existing WTE operations, and instead continue to put forth claims made by a company without experience and invested only in their own gain, is the worst example of fox guarding the henhouse I've seen in my engineering career of some 30 years.
Drilling down on some of the other facts, when we calculate the TRUE cost of that power, including the $20 Million annually to be paid to AEG for processing the VI's MSW into fuel to burn in their St. Croix operation, along with the base power sales rates (which begin at $0.14 per kilowatt-hour year 1 and increases to $0.27 per kilowatt-hour year 25), the total WHOLESALE (before adding WAPA's internal / overhead costs / salaries, etc.) cost per kilowatt-hour would be $0.48 year 1 and rise to $0.61 per kilowatt-hour year 25. Clearly, that is a terrible "deal". To suggest somehow that fuel processing costs (converting MSW into pelletized RDF, and the $20 Million annually that would be obligated to AEG by the VI, regardless of how much waste we actually produce or recycle) would be excluded from calculations of true power costs seems highly uninformed and inexperienced at best, and at worst a complete misportrayal of the facts.
Further, St. Thomians, St. Johnians and Water Island residents would receive no power supply benefits whatsoever from the St. Croix burn operation, yet would have to shoulder their part of the staggering fuel production costs ($20 Million annually) to power the St. Croix incinerator.
We can do vastly better than that, and we must. Let's save that $20 Million annually; Manage our MSW in sound and sustainable ways that create new businesses and jobs and a healthier environment (the 3Rs - reduction, recycling / composting and reuse); and Invest that saved $20 Million annually in clean and renewable power supply systems.