Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Celebrating America's WTE Efforts with a New Magazine


Americans are extremely proud of our accomplishments and contributions to the international community since becoming our own country in 1776. But our contributions to the environmental problem as one of the largest producers of waste have left a black mark on our record.  The vast size of our country has allowed us to put off dealing with our trash problem for decades, preferring to watch as Western European countries toil and take the lead in the renewable energy industry.

As our American brethren prepare to celebrate the 236th anniversary of our independence from England with fireworks and frankfurters, we’d like to give you something else to celebrate.  Yankee Doodle dandies in the waste-to-energy and biomass industries will enjoy browsing the pages of the first issue of Renewable Energy From Waste, a magazine serving fuel and energy producers in America.

While the magazine isn’t exclusively for those that sing the Star Spangled Banner, it does appear to be targeted towards an American audience.  Highlights from the quarterly-publication’s first issue include:

A Working Modelan article about Greenwood Energy producing market-friendly fuel pellets from waste in America’s heartland

Tools For the Job – an article on maximizing RDF systems

Healthy Support – an article on financial sources for WTE

The subject of our Jan. 29th blog, Harvey Gershman, even wrote a column on The Growing Role of WTE (see: Industry Influence Spotlight: Harvey Gershman).

Renewable Energy from Waste certainly isn’t the first American publication focused on renewable energy but we are excited to find an outlet that celebrates the efforts and advancements people from the good ol’ U.S.A. are making to solve our own waste problems.

We love our friends across the pond and have received valuable insight from the UK about what an incredible opportunity we have to derive energy from waste. Differences in infrastructure, economy, and environmental regulations, however, prevent us from implementing the same strategies and yielding the exact same results. Americans pride themselves on independence and just as they wanted to be in charge of their own fate in the late 1700s, we would like to solve our own waste problem today.

And we promise not to throw any tea overboard this time.


Sunday, June 10, 2012

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Waste's State of the Union


Benefits of Expanding WTE Deployment
April’s issue of POWER Magazine featured an excerpt of Stan Rosinski’s white paper entitled Waste-to-Energy Technology: Opportunities for Expanding Renewable Generation & Reducing Carbon Emissions. This paper serves as a relatively up-to-date overview of the state of the WTE industry in Europe, Asia and the U.S.

Seeing this paper again reminded us of how many people are approaching this industry from a variety of backgrounds. Although Rosinski’s text can be a little dense for newcomers, he provides an excellent foundation for understanding the various technologies in advanced thermal conversion, resource management, processing methods and feedstocks.

We find the graphics to be especially helpful in communicating the maturation rate of different technologies, MSW management by region and the environmental hierarchy for solid waste management.

Rosinski points out that the two largest barriers to development in the industry in the United States come from misconceptions about the environmental performance that foster negative opinions and the high cost and risk that keeps projects from being funded.

Since the best way to combat the first problem is through education, we’d highly recommend this paper for anyone interested in breaking into the industry or better understanding the difference between development in the U.S. and overseas.



To Read the Full White Paper:
Waste-to-Energy Technology: Opportunities for Expanding Renewable Generation & Reducing Carbon Emissions – by Stan Rosinski , Electric Power Research Institute


From Refuse to Electrons