@All
I opened a new thread:
http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2010/03/29/municipal-waste-management-ctd/

So with regards to the Environmental Issues first. Incineration is alleged to be Environmentally Acceptable and Proven.

If the first part of this statement was true then why is it that every few years after an event new Legislation is enacted to rectify past inadequacies? Surely the test of Environmentally Acceptable has to be capable of meeting current Legislation and Foreseen New Legislation. So what is Foreseen and what is New Legislation?

We already know that Ireland like the rest of European Union is a signatory to the Stockholm Convention on POPS (Persistent Organic Pollutants) control. This means that any and all processing plants in Ireland must control their emissions to the air and the land. Incineration does not eliminate POPS for even after controls there are escapes. And one area where this is blatantly uncontrolled is in Dioxins and similar compounds.

The EPA in the USA has declared that Dioxins are the most dangerous and harmful substances known to humans. They can be ingested through many pathways to humans. The effects on human foetuses and infant growth is as yet not fully understood, but upon ingesting they are absorbed into the very DNA of humans whereupon the natural cycle of multiplication of the in-built DNA chains means that within a space of 2 years (from inside the womb to a 15 month-old infant) the multiplication of Dioxins can be many tens or even hundreds of millions. So whilst their is a so-called ”acceptable” dose rate for humans please be reminded that it is not the same for pregnant mothers and infants. But you ask why is Dioxin liberated from Incineration facilities more dangerous than others? The answer here is simple, it is continuous and it is airborne and distributed and concentrated down-wind of such a facility. There are no safe limits for Dioxins in the atmosphere.

Under already accepted Legislation any incineration plant has to control the emission of Particulates to the size of PM10 (the legislation was enacted within the last two years.) This is after the response bid given for the Ringsend Incineration project. The costs for attenuating this are not unsubstantial, and from comparisons elsewhere may cost in excess of €100 million.

In an address recently published Dublin Corporation reluctantly had it drawn from them that provision to manage the residues (Hearth Ash/Clinker and Flue Ash) all of which is Toxic had not been catered for. Who is paying for the €100 million secure LandFill site? Your correspondents here record that this is an ongoing cost that is only forecast to be €130-00 per tonne. If that is correct and the residues are 15% of the original 600,000 tonnes per annum that would be €7,800,000 per year. However recalling that such charges elsewhere in Europe .exceed €200-00 per tonne can we assume that this is real?

Incineration is Proven Technology? Surely someone does not understand the logic of Proven and Experimental. Incineration Plants have been built and work but the outcome of the process is hardly a proven issue. Converting a Raw Material to a series of Wasted Gases and Solids whereupon there are no further uses is not the best proven example of waste management. In fact it is the treatment of last resort after all other systems have been viewed and tested for viability. Too many people hide behind the issue of Proven and BPEO (Best Practical Environmental Option) or BATNEEC (Best Available Technology Not Exceeding Excessive Cost) knowing full well that there are other systems around that offer Better Environmental Accountability as well as being Affordable. To be both at the same time is better still! And so it is. The UK/Dutch/Americans have developed a process for converting the Biomass to make the Biofuel Ethanol at a capital cost that would (i) be less than half that for Incineration (ii) not produce any emissions because the process is a wet based one, (iii) not require upgrading after a few years (iv) not entail having to increase Gate Fees for Treatment above €35-00 per tonne and after a period of say 5 to 7 years dispose of any treatment costs whatsoever. Possible? Real? Of course it is otherwise why would they be building plants in the UK Netherlands Israel VietNam Kentucky China Guam and elsewhere.

Wake up everyone Incineration is old hat outdated and an expensive mill stone of costs that hang around you for ever. Break out of this mould and get the Government out of their conviction that it is a done deal. It is not and need not.

So what? So 2016 is Y-Year and we can easily build a few large sheds with aeration channels to stabilise the residual waste in 6 years. Some commentators (not yourelf) are portraying the need for the incinerator as urgent.

Not so. We are only now getting to grips with all the costs which DCC have been obfuscating.

The costs omitted by them so far include:

1 Cost of Bottom Ash
2 Cost of Fly Ash
3 CO2 cost
4 Clients Representative cost
5 Land purchase
6 Community Gain fund
7 Efficiency loss through burning sewage sludge
8 Parasitic use of electricity

We used the EfW model found in Table 11.5 on p 260 of the EPA MBT Synthesis report to re-assess the true economic cost of the Poolbeg incinerator.
http://www.epa.ie/downloads/pubs/research/waste/name,25535,en.html

Full workings available to anyone - just ask.

The revised gate fee is now 122 euros per tonne.

This is higher than the cost of MBT.

This is not water under the bridge. Some of these corrections to the original business case have come to hand only in the last few weeks.

If we don’t analyse the economic cost then who will? It certainly won’t be Covanta or DCC.

- - -
J & V

And this will all come from the south and west of Dublin, though the gridlocked traffic in Ringsend.

This is still the wrong project in the wrong place!

The economics of any energy-generating project depend on the quality of the fuel. What the contract says about the calorific value of the inputs - i.e., how well the waste has to burn to avoid paying a penalty has to make a big difference to whether a proposed incinerator is economically attractive or not.

@antoin
BMW burns fine. Incinerators produce net energy.

The EPA has refined its waste categorisation. This does not make BMW disappear. If it is to be kept from landfill, an alternative (incineration, gasification, composting) needs to be provided.

Unfortunately for DCC there is direct evidence that the figures were ‘massaged’ (to use the words of McKechnie J) to produce a particular outcome. In 1997 DCC had ‘prejudged’ the outcome in favour of incineration and MBT never had a chance.

The evidence can be found in the 1997 analysis “Technical Studies & Dublin Waste Model”. The following outputs from incineration are listed on page 56 but the costs were omitted:

o Slags
o Flyash
o Fluegas
o Wastewater

Typical costs for these would be:

1. Slags (Bottom ash)
Never costed – DCC propose a daft notion that this ash is to be exported from Poolbeg for ‘recycling’ in the UK or Denmark. The huge cost of transporting the bottom ash was omitted from the model. We were not allowed discuss this aspect at the oral hearings into the incinerator.

The UK recycles about 50% of bottom ash but this will now fall because the Highways Agency in October banned the use of bottom ash aggregates in road contracts following an explosion which injured workers.

The likelihood is that the ash will be land filled at whatever gate fee applies to landfill plus a potential landfill levy. In the UK the levy is currently £ 2.50 for inert material but HM Treasury has proposed to increase this to £ 72 per tonne for active material. Bottom ash is an active material because of the heavy metal content.

2. Fly ash
The original model omitted the cost of disposal - about € 10 per tonne of waste burned based on research from the original MCCK waste strategy study. Again the cost of transport was omitted.

3. Cost of CO2
Paul Gorecki’s revised ESRI report puts the cost of CO2 from incineration at € 5.60 per tonne of waste burned.

The authors of the original model, MCCK, left out the cost of disposing of these expensive products of incineration. These omissions make nonsense of the analysis and we know from Mr P J Rudden that the model has not been revisited since 1997.

These omissions from the model are so egregious that it confirms our opinion that DCC had ‘prejudged’ the outcome and produced a set of figures to suit incineration.

Incineration was not then, and is not now, the ‘cheapest reliable technology’.

A properly costed comparison of MBT v incineration should be conducted with input from all sides.
- - - -
J & V

For further detail on MBT see following EPA funded report. Chapters 10 11 & 12
“Critical Analysis of the Potential of Mechanical Biological Treatment for Irish Waste Management Synthesis Report for the ERTDI-funded project: 2005-WRM-MS-35″

http://www.epa.ie/downloads/pubs/research/waste/name,25535,en.html

This report states that incineration is cheaper than MBT but requires greater capital investment and a longer comitment. The economics of MBT are greatly tied up with the gate fee at Cement Kilns. See figure 11.1 of the above report.

Low landfill prices are likely to be a temporary factor. There is unlikely to investment in new landfill capcity at the current low rates

Forget about incineration vs other technologies. It is all about the cost of the contract.

How can any of us make a judgement on this issue until we know what DCC are comitting to in the contract?

If DCC re-tendered the disposal of this waste what would the cost be given the hugely changed market.

I fear this is a bubble price deal just like the new airport terminal. I have no problem with terminals, so long as they are not over sized and over priced.

.

Finally, if MBT is more costly than incineration and will be for the foreseeable future then we should build the full size incinerator. There is as I say one already in the city of Vienna. Poolbeg is I believe the first municipal waste incinerator in Ireland so there is a lot of fear but once it is built opposition should die down quite quickly.

Or the Poolbeg chimneys, soon (I understand) to be no longer with us.

Mind you, pretty well anything you built at Poolbeg, west of the wall, would be an improvement to the local landscape.

bjg

@All
My own opinion would be that a large incinerator - if not perhaps on the original scale - is inevitable. Hopefully it will become as accepted a local landmark as the Vienna incinerator.

Anyway, we’re not starting from scratch. We have a shovel-ready project with all licences and contracts signed versus an ill-defined alternative that is a glint in the eye of a politician only — and we’re under time pressure because of the limits on landfill loom.

If you read the comments and the response to the comments, then you notice that (a) the main conclusions were never criticised and (b) six out of seven criticisms were unfounded.

If you read the reaction in today’s and yesterday’s papers then you’ll find that there are no substantial objections. IWMA continues to claim that the ESRI waste projections (peer-reviewed, based on Irish data, used by EPA and DEHLG) are inferior to their own (not peer-reviewed, based on non-Irish data, used by IWMA). Eunomia continues to claim that the overwhelming majority of environmental economists would favour double regulation; that’s just not true.

If the ESRI used harsh words to describe proposed policy changes, then that is because the proposals could not be cast in a more favourable light.

My intention was to “go after” the simple errors and (what I judged to be) the uncharacteristically polemic tone that I noted on my preliminary perusal of the first version of the ESRI report. I greatly admire and respect the independent research conducted by ESRI, and was rather inelegantly drawing attention to these, and the issues highlighted in a more reasoned fashion by Colm and Paul above.

For the record, I am not a member of the green party (I was formerly) and work as a contractor for several national and international organisations, as well as with the IIEA.

I say this only because the comments above could be seen to associate me with some sort of orchestrated green party spin; an association that is damaging to my professional integrity.

Noted. Appreciated. Over and out.