How to Determine if a WTE Developer is Offering a Sound Deal
To guide municipalities as they do their research, NWRA and SWANA developed a document that provides vetted information.
More and more waste-to-energy (WTE) project developers are targeting municipalities, proposing deals involving emerging technologies like anaerobic digestion, gasification and pyrolysis. Some of them overpromise and underdeliver, so decision-makers need to do their homework.
“Many people who elected officials are talking to are earnest and trying to build successful facilities. Unfortunately, they are often more optimistic than is warranted. And some of these officials are often pulled in. They can tell those coming in with propositions tend to believe, but belief is not good enough,” says Anne Germain, vice president of technical and regulatory affairs for the National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA).
Scalable technologies like anaerobic digestion are undoubtedly advancing, but these systems are still being vetted in different scenarios, and there are fairly limited existing facilities, at least in the U.S.
A number of them have failed, with a former INEOS bioenergy plant leveraging a fermentation process among projects that have continued to be in the spotlight for years. The West Palm Beach area project, which received millions in government subsidies, launched years ago to make ethanol and electricity from waste. It hit brick walls and has run for only short periods since its start.
Germain notes a trend where municipalities have signed deals with companies that may not offer realistic expectations with regard to cost or capacity. They may not have figured in for pretreatments and odor control measures, among considerations.
“Eventually someone will get all the pieces right, and it will work. But sometimes costs to fine-tune [the system and process] are underestimated during development stages,” says Germain.
To guide municipalities as they do their research, NWRA and the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) developed a document, providing vetted information. Titled