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Energy from municipal solid waste in Chennai, India : a feasibility study
Solid waste management is one of the most essential functions in a country to achieve a sustainable development. In India, it has been one of the least prioritized functions during the last decades. The most common ways to treat waste in India today are open dumping and uncontrolled burning. These methods are causing severe environmental pollution and health problems. India is one of the world’s largest emitter of methane gas from waste disposal. Since methane is a strong greenhouse gas, even small emissions have large impact on the climate. Improper treatment of waste will also affect peoples’ health, first of all by the spreading of toxic compounds from uncontrolled burning and secondly by leakage of sewage from the dumping grounds into the groundwater. When waste is incinerated in an incineration plant there are many environmental benefits. First of all, the possibility of using flue gas treatment prevents emissions of toxic compounds to emit to the air compared to if waste is burnt uncontrolled. Secondly, the amount of waste going to the dumpsite will decrease, resulting in a reduction of methane formation and less leakage of sewage from the dumpsite to the groundwater. Chennai is the fourth largest city in India with a population of 4.3 million (2001 census). It is the Corporation of Chennai, CoC, which has the overall responsibility for solid waste management in the city. With street sweepers, tricycles and compactors they collect and transport the waste to one of the two dumpsites in the city; Perungudi in the north or Kodungaiyur in the south. Like most municipalities in India, CoC has experienced difficulties keeping in pace with last decades’ industrialization, resulting in insufficient collection of municipal solid waste and over burdened dumpsites. Another consequence of the rapid industrialization is the increased demand for electricity. Today there is not enough installed capacity of power stations in Chennai to meet this demand, leading to daily power cuts. If the waste on the two dumpsites will be left untreated, the dumpsites are only expected to be useful until the year 2015. To prolong the lifespan of the dumpsites CoC has signed a contract with the company Hydroair Tectonics, who shall minimize the waste on Perungudi. There is a chance that there will be a similar contract on Kodungaiyur as well. This company will build a processing plant that will segregate the waste into recyclable, inert, organic and burnable material. The inert and organic waste will be processed further into bricks and compost, which will be sold on the open market. The burnable material will be processed into a fluffy fraction called RDF-fluff. In the initial stage the RDF-fluff will be sold to coal-fired industries as "green coal". In the future Hydroair Tectonics plans to build a combustion unit for burning RDF and generate electricity, which will be sold to the grid. This report will give an overview of the current waste and electricity situation in Chennai and analyze whether Hydroair Tectonics should build this combustion unit or if they should sell the generated RDF to industries. The result will be presented in a case study.
Energy from municipal solid waste in Chennai, India : a feasibility study
Solid waste management is one of the most essential functions in a country to achieve a sustainable development. In India, it has been one of the least prioritized functions during the last decades. The most common ways to treat waste in India today are open dumping and uncontrolled burning. These methods are causing severe environmental pollution and health problems. India is one of the world’s largest emitter of methane gas from waste disposal. Since methane is a strong greenhouse gas, even small emissions have large impact on the climate. Improper treatment of waste will also affect peoples’ health, first of all by the spreading of toxic compounds from uncontrolled burning and secondly by leakage of sewage from the dumping grounds into the groundwater. When waste is incinerated in an incineration plant there are many environmental benefits. First of all, the possibility of using flue gas treatment prevents emissions of toxic compounds to emit to the air compared to if waste is burnt uncontrolled. Secondly, the amount of waste going to the dumpsite will decrease, resulting in a reduction of methane formation and less leakage of sewage from the dumpsite to the groundwater. Chennai is the fourth largest city in India with a population of 4.3 million (2001 census). It is the Corporation of Chennai, CoC, which has the overall responsibility for solid waste management in the city. With street sweepers, tricycles and compactors they collect and transport the waste to one of the two dumpsites in the city; Perungudi in the north or Kodungaiyur in the south. Like most municipalities in India, CoC has experienced difficulties keeping in pace with last decades’ industrialization, resulting in insufficient collection of municipal solid waste and over burdened dumpsites. Another consequence of the rapid industrialization is the increased demand for electricity. Today there is not enough installed capacity of power stations in Chennai to meet this demand, leading to daily power cuts. If the waste on the two dumpsites will be left untreated, the dumpsites are only expected to be useful until the year 2015. To prolong the lifespan of the dumpsites CoC has signed a contract with the company Hydroair Tectonics, who shall minimize the waste on Perungudi. There is a chance that there will be a similar contract on Kodungaiyur as well. This company will build a processing plant that will segregate the waste into recyclable, inert, organic and burnable material. The inert and organic waste will be processed further into bricks and compost, which will be sold on the open market. The burnable material will be processed into a fluffy fraction called RDF-fluff. In the initial stage the RDF-fluff will be sold to coal-fired industries as "green coal". In the future Hydroair Tectonics plans to build a combustion unit for burning RDF and generate electricity, which will be sold to the grid. This report will give an overview of the current waste and electricity situation in Chennai and analyze whether Hydroair Tectonics should build this combustion unit or if they should sell the generated RDF to industries. The result will be presented in a case study.
Energy from municipal solid waste in Chennai, India : a feasibility study
Axelsson , Camilla (author) / Kvarnström , Theres (author)
2010-01-01
Miscellaneous
Electronic Resource
English , Swedish
DDC:
710
Environmental Impact Assessment for Municipal Solid Waste Management in Chennai City
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2005
|Online Contents | 2015
|Elsevier | 2014
|