This is a tremendously timely thread. Thanks to Eric for seizing the
opportunity to suggest we generate a tool we can all use to slay the
dragon of incineration.
I am picking up from many sources that "dirty" composting (such
as AD of mixed residuals) is admitted (with explicit grudgingness!) to
the list of acceptable practices even by folks who seriously pursue ZW ~
I'm thinking of Enzo Favoino here.
I have always wondered whether the rate of release of C isn't a critical
advantage of composting over incineration, as I believe Neil pointed out
earlier in this thread.
I have one naive question about carbon accounting. I understand from what
you've said that organics are considered biogenic or current carbon, and
thence the IPCC and others argue that it's a wash when they are
incinerated, because they would have been released in the same year
anyway. But how is embodied carbon factored in, when accounting
for organics ~ especially food waste, due to fossil inputs during
industrial food production?
H.
At 03:52 PM 1/24/2008, Neil Tangri wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the detailed reply. I would also like to hear from composters
& soil scientists who could shed more light on the issue.
The reason that I think it could be a make-or-break issue (although the
short time of sequestration certainly throws doubt onto that) is how the
calculations are done on incineration. Incineration of fossil-fuel based
waste creates more GHG per kWh than burning coal; so if we got all the
organics out of the waste stream, incinerators would clearly be a dirty
(from a strictly climate perspective) source of electricity. But if you
incinerate a mixed waste stream and then deduct the CO2 that's of
biogenic origin (however you estimate that), you can make incinerators
look like they're more carbon-efficient than coal. Obviously, this is
because you're getting electricity out of burning organics, but not
counting the carbon released. This is the argument that the incinerator
industry is using in Europe and under the UN's Clean Development
Mechanism to get a hold of climate credits for incinerators. If we can
show that the alternative (composting/AD) involves significant
sequestration, we can undermine their arguments.
cheers,
Neil
Jeffrey Morris wrote:
Neil,
Good points. My only issue with that approach is that we already
know that
the fossil fuel content products release enough fossil CO2 to make them
net
CO2 emitters even after deducting the avoided fossil CO2 from electric
power
generation. SO you're taking on a lot of climate change experts
who've
attempted to determine what sources of CO2 should be counted as
anthropogenic versus the sources that go on naturally.
Still your point about the rate of release may be a good one.
It's
complicated. The grass and leaves portion of material composted
or
incinerated is replaced on an annual basis. So the incinerated
amounts are
offset by the newly grown amounts each year.
The composted amounts are applied to gardens, lawns and agricultural
fields
where EPA's WARM methodology says that about a third of the carbon in
the
leaves and grass are sequestered. And that's accounted for in the
WARM
model. The rest goes up into the air during composting or is lost to
the
atmosphere by soil critters and other mechanisms I know very little
about.
Bottom line I think you'll have difficulty showing that any
significant
amount above a third remains sequestered. I guess you could look
into the
difference between the carbon content of leaves and grass and the
carbon
content of the compost they produce, see what that difference is.
Then
calculate the difference between what is lost in the first year versus
the
33% that is sequestered.
My gut feel, which could be way off since I'm not a soil scientist, is
that
you are after a small detail that won't make or break the composting
versus
incineration case for organics, especially since the 33% number is one
that
applies over a relatively short time frame anyway, say 5 years or so.
Given
the 2040 tipping point for climate change that is now being discussed,
the
less than five years sequestration of a little more carbon for the
composting life cycle versus the incineration life cycle doesn't seem
that
critical.
If there are any compost and soil scientists reading this maybe they
could
respond and educate us all on this matter.
Jeff
-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Tangri
[mailto:neil@no.address]
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 3:20 PM
To: Jeffrey Morris
Cc: eric@no.address; hspie@no.address; ricanthony@no.address;
gaia-zero-waste@no.address; GreenYes@no.address
Subject: Re: [GreenYes] RE: [ZWIA] Re: LA Zero Waste pans
Hi Jeff,
The reason I made a point about this is that I think we need to be a
little more critical in how we treat biogenic CO2 releases. I know that
the USEPA simply ignores all biogenic CO2 emissions, but I think that
approach is both inaccurate and biased in favor of incineration.
If composting sequesters, for example, half its carbon content for an
average of ten years, that results in a much slower release to the
atmosphere over time than incineration of the same material, which
releases virtually all its carbon content instantly. Yet most current
calculations ignore both. If we can show significant sequestration in
compost (or anaerobic digestion), that helps to undermine climate
change-based arguments for incineration (and landfills w/ gas recovery).
Sorry if this is all old news, but that's why I'm looking for primary
research that shows such sequestration. I'd love to see a copy of your
study when it's done, and if others have other sources, I'd be grateful
for those as well. My internet searches have turned up very little.
cheers,
Neil
Jeffrey Morris wrote:
Neil,
The CO2 releases from composting are biogenic, the methane is not.
The
assumption is that a well-managed composting operation does not let
the
compost pile become anaerobic if it's an aerobic compost process, or
that it
is enclosed if its an anaerobic
digester that is intended to capture the
methane for energy use.
The EPA's WARM report provides an estimate of the amount that soil
carbon is
increased and sequestered through
applications of compost. That's one
source you can find on EPA's website. You can find other sources as
well by
searching the web. I'm
currently doing a brief summary for Seattle Public
Utilities (SPU) of the carbon sequestration potential from a variety
of
natural lawn and garden care practices. However, it probably won't
be
available for release for a few months.
Jeff
Jeffrey Morris
Sound Resource Management 360-867-1033
-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Tangri
[mailto:neil@no.address]
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 1:32 PM
To: Jeffrey Morris
Cc: eric@no.address; hspie@no.address; ricanthony@no.address;
zerowaste_sd@no.address; zwia@no.address;
gaia-zero-waste@no.address; GreenYes@no.address;
crra_members@no.address
Subject: Re: [GreenYes] RE: [ZWIA] Re: LA Zero Waste pans
Hi Eric,
I'm glad to see this effort to put together a good "bridge"
argument. As you note, we're running into this issue all over the world,
and municipalities really do need practical answers for the medium term,
even if they are sold on ZW in the long term. Here are some thoughts and
questions to add to the mix:
1) Incinerators require a hazwaste landfill to handle the ash. If the
residue isn't incinerated, a regular landfill is sufficient.
2) I think that understanding the residue composition is important. If
there is an aggressive composting program in place, might there not be
too few organics to make AD sensible? Conversely, without a good EPR
program, I would imagine that much of the residue is precisely what we
don't want to burn -- chlorinated plastics, paints and pesticides, for
example.
3) Jeff, what sources do you rely on to show that composting releases few
GHGs? Or do you mean that all the releases would be biogenic in origin?
If there are sources that show significant (even short-term)
sequestration of carbon through composting, I'd love to see
them.
4) Any plan to incinerate establishes, for all practical purposes, a cap
on diversion rates. In other words, if LA builds an incinerator for 30%
of its waste stream, it can never divert more than 70%. An incinerator
for 10% of the waste stream is going to be too small to be practical
except in the largest urban areas.
cheers,
Neil
Jeffrey Morris wrote:
Hey Eric,
Thanks for making the effort to put this argument together. I would
add a couple of points to your list:
1. Many of the products left in that 30% are in fact made up of fossil
fuel material that will generate GHGs when burned - e.g., plastics,
rubber, paints and pesticides. This is why incinerators even with
energy recovery are net GHG emitters even after taking into account the
electric power grid offsets from the electricity that
incinerators generate.
2. Production of incineration
equipment and emissions control equipment that make up the incinerator
facility, as well as the fuel and other energy consumed in constructing
the incinerator, are also sources of GHG emissions.
3. composting done correctly should emit little GHGs, although the
equipment and energy to operate a compost facility will be GHG
sources.
However, the cost of a compost facility compared with the cost on an
incinerator indicates the relative amount of GHGs for a composting
operation versus an incineration disposal facility.
What do you think?
Jeff
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* zwia@no.address
[mailto:zwia@no.address]
*On Behalf Of *Eric Lombardi
*Sent:* Thursday, January 24, 2008 12:36 PM
*To:* hspie@no.address; ricanthony@no.address; zerowaste_sd@no.address;
zwia@no.address; gaia-zero-waste@no.address;
GreenYes@no.address; crra_members@no.address
*Subject:* [ZWIA] Re: LA Zero Waste pans
Helen is right, and I just got an email from Scotland that their "ZW
Scotland" will include 25% efw.
I suggest we come up with a position on how to build the bridge to a ZW
Future. Since 90%+ resource recovery isn't going to happen
immediately, we need to advocate for a positive solution to the remaining
mixed waste fraction. "They" out there are saying
"it's a waste to NOT make energy out of it". and in today's
world that is a very compelling and logical position. If we don't
like that, than what is our alternative?
Let me share what I've been saying to counter the efw proponents . (just
did it this morning) . and I know this isn't the preferred future we are
all working for, but I do present it as a "bridge"
strategy:
1. Source separated community MSW is the cleanest and
cheapest way to
manage 70% of the community's discards,
and this has been proven
in numerous communities;
2. The remaining 30% of mixed waste will be gradually phased
down to
only 10% over about a ten year period (in
truth no one has done
this yet so we don't know how long it will
take), and while we're
getting there we will process the material
at the landfill either
through (1) an energy-producing anaerobic
digestion system and
then using the stabilized digestate as
daily cover (this approach
is for big cities that can afford it); or
(2) a simple windrow
composting system that will stabilize the
biowaste fraction of the
mixed waste, and then again use as daily
cover. After ten years,
there will no more than 10% mixed waste,
maybe even zero (but I
doubt it), and it will continue to be
processed and stabilized. 3. This approach will triple
or more the life of the existing
landfill infrastructure in America, and
it's possible that no new
landfills or incinerators need be built
for the next 100 years, if
ever.
Since there is a flood of new incinerator and "bioreactor"
proposals popping up all around us, I suggest that the above argument
combined with a moratorium for five years on new incinerators and
landfills is a winner. We need to argue that there is no sense in
moving forward with the multi-million dollar facilities to bury and burn
our resources until after a serious pursuit of 70% has been
implemented.
Feedback? Where is this argument weak? My goal is to stop the
flow of investments into the new bury/burn facilities, so what else can
we do to accomplish that?
Eric
Eric Lombardi
Executive Director
Eco-Cycle Inc
5030 Pearl St.
Boulder, CO. 80301
303-444-6634
www.ecocycle.org
<http://www.ecocycle.org>
*Vote for Eco-Cycle, Help us win $5,000*
To celebrate their new store opening in Boulder and continue their tradition of environmental activism, *Patagonia <http://www.patagonia.com/>* will donate $5,000 to the local environmental organization that gets the most votes in their Voice Your Choice contest. Cast your vote online <http://www.patagonia.com/boulder> for Eco-Cycle *before March 29!*
-----Original Message-----
*From:* zwia@no.address [mailto:zwia@no.address] *On Behalf Of *Helen Spiegelman
*Sent:* Thursday, January 24, 2008 10:24 AM
*To:* ricanthony@no.address; zerowaste_sd@no.address; zwia@no.address; gaia-zero-waste@no.address; GreenYes@no.address; crra_members@no.address
*Subject:* [ZWIA] Re: LA Zero Waste pans
There is a dragon coiled in these paragraphs.
Our metro politicians made a momentous decision this week to cancel a huge landfill project. The political buy-in was achieved through the promise that we can build a suite of 3 - 6 waste-to-energy plants here in the region to manage "what cannot be further recycled or composted..." Our regional staff have even hijacked the "Zero Waste Challenge" issued by our politicians and are saying that WTE is a component of ZW.
Citizens in our region are getting organized to challenge this. We all know that an incinerator ~ or any facility that turns waste to any kind of* "fuel" *~ is a tapeworm that will suck more and more resources that are needed to build a healthy economy (or needed to stay right where they are in nature...)
Activities that facilitate the transformation of material to energy is what is driving climate change.
Please assure me and the citizens of LA that your Zero Waste plan doesn't have a waste-to-"fuel" provision.
H.
At 08:44 AM 1/24/2008, ricanthony@no.address wrote:
Whatever cannot be further recycled or composted from the department's 750,000 weekly customers could be *turned into alternative
fuels, *such as biodiesel or electricity to power our grid, said Alex Helou, assistant director for the city's Bureau of Sanitation.
"Instead of just burying it in the ground and creating greenhouse gases, we could use it as a resource to recycle, reuse and convert into a resource that could create clean energy," said Helou.
It's too early to say how much money the city could make from these alternative fuels, but there is definite potential to generate revenue, Pereira said.
Already Long Beach converts garbage into electricity for its residents. And it uses about 100 tons of trash from Los Angeles a day to do it and also charges $42.50 a ton to take our garbage, said Helou.
But by using Los Angeles garbage to create energy for our city, we can also reduce our costs instead of subsidizing Long Beach, Helou said.
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