Elsevier

Renewable Energy

Volume 34, Issue 9, September 2009, Pages 2074-2079
Renewable Energy

Emission reductions potential for energy from municipal solid waste incineration in Chongqing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2009.02.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Municipal solid waste (MSW) is a potential energy resource which can be incineration to energy. Furthermore, it can conserve more valuable fossil fuel and improve the environment by lessening Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission and the amount of waste that must be landfilled. This paper highlights the MSW generation and characteristics for the city of Chongqing, the nation's fourth largest municipality after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. At present the daily amount of MSW generated per person is about 0.85 kg; food waste accounts for about 53.7% of total MSW. MSW in Chongqing has higher moisture content and lower net caloric value, which is an obstruction for incineration. This paper examines the emission reductions potential for MSW incineration power plant in urban Chongqing. As a case study, emission reductions analysis and economic assessment was implemented for Tongxing MSW incineration power plant. The results show that with the power displacement potential at 235 060 MWh, Chongqing is expected to generate emission reductions as much as 815 862–827 969 tCO2 and net profit US$7.72 million per annum.

Introduction

Combustion of fossil fuels is the main source of GHG emissions to the atmosphere, which is the main cause of climate change. China is a developing country, although the per capita GHG emission is much lower than that in the developed countries, due to a large population. However, with the continual growth population and rapid economic increase, the GHG emissions are also growing rapidly. The low energy efficiency and rapid growth of energy demand in China provide huge potential for emission reductions. According to a World Bank study [1], China's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) potential in 2010 is estimated at 79.2 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent, meeting 11% of the worlds' total demand for carbon offsets and 48% of total CDM potential.

China has an unfavorable energy consumption distribution because of energy endowment. Globally, only 26.5% of the primary energy consumption comes from coal. However, this rate was as high as 67.7% in 2004 [2]. With the Chinese economy keeping a high-speed growth, rapid energy consumption growth is caused by such energy intensive sectors as steel, cement and power generation. The electric generation production in 2004 was 20 418.08 TWh in China, Huang et al. [3] based on historical data of the electric-power requirement from 1985 to 2001 in China, forecasted and analyzed the electric-power demand in China which was 31 247.5 TWh in 2010. According to the World Bank study on CDM in China [1], based on modeling a calculation, at a maximum incremental cost of 13.6US$/tCO2e, power generation sector can share 37.3% CO2 emission reductions potential among different sectors.

In China, Sanitary landfills are the main disposal way for municipal solid waste (MSW) [4]. Sanitary landfills are a common and economically acceptable method for waste disposal [5]. However, landfills not only occupy a large amount of land, but also waste the valuable resource which could be recycled in MSW [6]. Power generation from MSW incineration will play an important role in China's sustainable development because it can conserve more valuable fossil fuel and improve the environment by lessening GHG emission and the amount of waste that must be landfilled. Since China produces 29% of the world's MSW each year [7] and there is a high increased demand for electricity power, MSW incineration for power generation technology needs to be developed and understood in order to be implemented for treating the waste generated in China.

Chongqing, located in the southwest of China, is the nation's fourth largest municipality after Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. It is also the economic center and transportation center of southwestern China with busy rivers and highways radiating in all directions. Chongqing Municipality has 40 districts and counties with an area of about 82,000 km2, and a population of about 31 million people. As Fig. 1 shows, the central urban area of Chongqing usually called Chongqing, consists of nine districts (Dadukou, Yuzhong, Jiangbei, Shapingba, Jiulongpo, Nan'an, Beibei, Ba'nan, and Yubei) and is the center of the Chongqing Municipality in finance, education and culture.

The main districts of Chongqing are embraced by the Yangtze River and the Jialing River. In the past, most of the MSW was piled along the riversides, dumped directly into the river or some no-sanitary landfills. The secondary pollution caused by the MSW was harmful to the sanitation and environment. As the completion of the Three Gorges Reservoir, the rivers-flow rates and their carrying capacity of the pollutants have been reduced. MSW disposal in Chongqing is becoming vital to the environmental protection of the Three Gorges Reservoir area.

This paper aims at analyzing Emission reductions potential for MSW incineration power plant in Chongqing. This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews the generation and treatment of MSW in Chongqing and Section 3 concerns local electricity demands and supplies in Chongqing provides the evidence on the potential benefits of power from MSW incineration. Section 4 case study analyses the focus on the economic aspect with the deliverables of total emission reductions per year and earnings from the emission reductions.

Section snippets

Generation and treatment of MSW in Chongqing

As illustrated in Fig. 2, the amount of MSW generated in the main districts of Chongqing has increased at a rate of about 4.9% with the growth of the economy and urban population. In 2005, the total amount of the MSW was 1.02 million tons, the average amount generated per day equaled 2800 tons and the daily amount generated per person was 0.85 kg. MSW generation in Chongqing is mainly composed of domestic refuse, road cleaning refuse and institutional refuse (official business, schools, and

Power demand and supply in Chongqing

Although the installed capacity of power in Chongqing Municipality has grown up rapidly for meeting the economic development in recent years, power demand cannot be satisfied so that 1/4 of the electricity consumption that will need to be bought from outside Chongqing. The energy consumptions of the local grid power plants comprised only two types, including hydro and steam-coal fired power plants. As shown in Fig. 4, by the end of 2005, the installed capacity of power in Chongqing is 5750 MW,

Methodology

In this paper, the Tongxing incineration power plant was a study as a case. With the power source structure in Chongqing Municipality, we defined the baseline and analyzed the costs of reducing emissions as well as the economic benefits. The cost increment of reducing emissions for GHG in the project was calculated by the followed formula.Ci=(CmCb)/(EmbEmm)where: Ci = Cost increment of emission reductions, $/t CO2

  • Cm = Total cost for 1 kWh in the project, $/(kWh);

  • Cb = Total cost for 1 kWh with

Conclusion

Emission reductions potential for MSW incineration in Chongqing has been illustrated in this paper. MSW incineration does give high returns on energy while staying low on the energy consumed to treat the MSW. Furthermore, it conserves more valuable fossil fuel and improves the environment by lessening GHG emissions and the amount of waste that must be landfilled.

Waste disposal is a perennial problem to Chongqing. Due to the rapid urbanization, economic development and population growth, the

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