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DCL
There was a great New York Times story earlier this week about how Europe is forging ahead with waste-to-energy technology, and, while the U.S. recognizes its potential, has yet to embrace it.
Denmark, with its 5.5 million people, has 29 plants that convert waste into electricity and heat, while the U.S., with our more than 300 million people, has 87 plants, most of them 15 years old.
Increasing use of these plants in Europe (Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands are the leaders) means not only that there's a better solution for handling trash than landfilling it, but also that cleaner and cheaper energy is available for heat and electricity—and citizens, including residents living near the plants, embrace it. In Denmark, reports the Times, "plants are placed in the communities they serve, no matter how affluent, so that the heat of burning garbage can be efficiently piped into homes."
More from the Times story:
Their use has not only reduced the country's energy costs and reliance on oil and gas, but also benefited the environment, diminishing the use of landfills and cutting carbon dioxide emissions. The plants run so cleanly that many times more dioxin is now released from home fireplaces and backyard barbecues than from incineration.
There's an irony in the lack of such technology moving forward in the U.S.:
no new waste-to-energy plants are being planned or built in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency says -- even though the federal government and 24 states now classify waste that is burned this way for energy as a renewable fuel, in many cases eligible for subsidies.... Instead, distant landfills remain the end point for most of the nation's trash. New York City alone sends 10,500 tons of residential waste each day to landfills in places like Ohio and South Carolina.
Some states are said to be considering proposals for new waste-to-energy plants and several already-existing ones are being expanded. But the secretary of energy in Massachusetts, for example, does not expect it to be a smooth ride if even wind turbines set off protests.
What's holding the U.S. back?
There's a strong element of NIMBYism at play, but some environmental groups are also part of the hurdle blocking waste-to-energy technology from gaining more ground in the U.S. They have their eyes set on the zero waste prize, and to them, encouraging the incineration of trash means to encourage more of it.
Now, we certainly produce too much garbage—10,500 tons a day in NYC alone? That's insanity. (Although down from 13,000 tons a few years ago.) But the incinerators provide cleaner energy than most of what we have right now, and will slow our incessant landfilling faster than any zero waste planner can in the near future. Addressing two problems at once seems like a good deal for anyone who believes in efficiency.
I live in a county that has made zero waste an official goal—and even we're not there yet, which makes it hard to imagine its success anytime soon in the country as a whole.
Is it practical to oppose high-tech, relatively clean-burning waste-to-energy incinerators in favor of a zero waste policy in the U.S.? It seems like if we don't start with some simple subtraction, it'll be awfully tough to get to zero.
