Daily Times

What is more abundant in our country than municipal waste? Municipal waste is the result of the use of a commodity. The leftover is no longer of benefit to the owner. The waste is a hazard to the environment and needs proper management and disposal. However, for more than a decade now municipal authorities have viewed this waste as a potential source of income. Unfortunately, no waste-to-energy plant uses municipal waste as fuel. Some plants in the private sector use agricultural waste as fuel and high calorific waste is used by the cement industry. These uses add up to a negligible fraction compared to 78,000 tonnes of municipal waste produced in the country every day.

It is interesting that while most municipal waste collectors are unable to guarantee safe handling of the waste produced and there is not a single sanitary engineered landfill in the country, there is a great eagerness to waste-to-energy options. A lot of time and energy have in fact been wasted in pursuit of this chimera. Many memorandums of understanding have been signed and a seemingly infinite number of presentations have been made in this regard. Many delegations have gone abroad and visited waste-to-energy facilities that work smoothly.

An important aspect frequently gets neglected in the development of such facilities. The success stories, without exception, go like this: first, a strong collection and transportation network is developed, supported by awareness among citizens and waste management policies that pave the way for high end interventions. The strong waste supply chain is the biggest factor in the successful operation of waste-to-energy facilities. Waste-to-energy projects use a limited number of technologies, each with its own constraints.

The simplest and oldest methods consist of incineration and bio-digestion. Incineration requires high-calorific value waste, such as paper, plastic and wood. Bio-digestion requires an entirely different kind of waste i.e. organic and wet. Where the two kind of waste are well segregated, the waste-to-energy systems become viable. Options like gasification and pyrolysis are not suitable for Pakistan given the unpredictable nature of the waste collected. Extraction and use of landfill gas is another option. However, the quality of gas generated from our dumpsites is not expected to be up to mark. It will require a lot of cleansing to make it fit for use. The gas can, however, be used to produce electricity.

The quality of gas generated from our dumpsites is not expected to be up to mark. It will require a lot of cleansing to make it fit for use. It can, however, be used to produce electricity

For more than a decade, the municipal authorities have been considering the abundant waste as potential fuel to produce electricity. Three-fold benefits are expected from such a scheme. These include producing electricity to overcome energy shortage, selling the waste for financial gain and to protect the environment. The emphasis on the first two benefits has distracted many serious potential investors with the relevant know-how. The level of investment required for Lahore ranges from $350-600 million. This is a large investment by any means. Yet, the government has done very little to facilitate such investors by making a policy in this regard. Instead, it has tried to grab a share of the potential revenue.

The Turkish model is particularly popular with them. In Turkey, there are nearly two dozen waste-to-energy plants. Ankara does not have a landfill or garbage dump. It uses state-of-the-art gasification plants to turn the waste into fuel. However, the municipality delivers the waste free of charge at the plant and does not ask for a share in revenue. In other cities, which mostly have landfill gas to electricity plants, the share of municipalities ranges from 5 per cent to 50 per cent. Viewed from outside the picture is quite deceptive. The actual cost of electricity production from municipal waste is quite high, much higher than most conventional resources. Governments in Turkey and Iran provide a 12.5 to 19.5 cents per kilowatt hour tariff for these – almost three times that for coal fired plants. The main purpose of the policy is to get rid of the environmental nuisance and not to gain a part of the revenue.

In its 2017 report, the International Renewable Energy Agency said that wind turbine prices had an average cost of $0.06 per kWh, with the lowest as low as $0.04 per kWh. The cost of solar photovoltaic in the meantime had fallen to $0.10 per kWh. In case of fossil fuels the cost was found to be $0.05 to $0.17 per kWh. On the other hand, the cost of producing electricity from biomass, including municipal waste, was calculated to be in range of $0.15/kWh. It clearly states that: “Given that these projects have been developed mostly to solve waste management issues, though, and not primarily for the competitiveness of their electricity production, this is not necessarily an impediment to their viability. In Europe, they are also sometimes supplying heat either to local industrial users, or district heating networks.”

The decision makers in our municipal authorities need to understand that waste-to-energy projects require a lot of investment. They need to provide a suitable policy environment, a long-term guarantee on investment and a specific type of untouched waste to the facility. Nowhere in the world do waste-to-energy plants exist to make profits if not subsidized by governments more focused on waste handling part of the equation.

Coming back to the case of Turkey where local authorities are getting between 5 and 50 per cent of the revenue in waste-to-energy plants, it must not be forgotten that it is federal government subsidy that is rerouted to them. The way forward for Pakistan is to decide if the environmental protection factor is going to get priority. If yes, a realistic tariff for electricity from waste should be introduced. A tipping fee mechanism could also be coupled with it. The government needs to subsidies this option rather than look at it as source of income.

On technical grounds, the only option for the time being is to extract landfill gas from large dumps and use it to produce electricity. This will also decrease the risk of methane explosions at dumpsites.

The writer is a senior specialist at the Urban Unit Lahore. He can be contacted at azharuup@gmail.com