Work programme

Work Scope

Task 26 (2010-2012) will examine a number of the key themes outlined in the Rationale.  It aims to pull together information on how the participating countries are addresses these issues.  This will result in a number of reports addressing the following areas:

• Topic 1: Policy support – two reports on: heat support mechanisms and the determination of the biogenic content of waste
• Topic 2: Review of state of the art of integration of processes for optimising resource recovery from municipal solid waste
• Topic 3: Review of cost effective small-scale energy recovery from waste
• Topic 4: Life cycle analysis of energy from waste
• Topic 5: Management of the residual fraction remaining after recycling
• Topic 6: Update of work on fine particle emissions

The information provided will be aimed at policy and decision makers involved in waste, energy and environmental areas at Government and local/regional level.  The work programme will be reviewed at twice-yearly Task meetings at which participants will discuss progress and set priorities for the coming period and for completing the work. 

Work Programme

The Work Programme has been developed with the intention of producing a series of individual reports to be made available on the Task Web site and to be reported through participation in relevant events.  Each of these reports addresses a key topic of critical importance to the energy from waste sector and those involved in decision making in policy or regulation. Together these reports will provide a series of complementary topics to inform policy and regulation.
In the past Task (2007-9) members of the Task have collectively taken responsibility for delivering these reports.  This has been successful for the Task, cementing team relationships and commitment to the overall deliverable.  It is proposed to continue to operate the Task in this manner.  Task members will:

• Contribute to the preparation of specific topic reports and/or
• Contribute to editorial duties in finalising the topic reports and/or
• Manage external consultants delegated by the Task to undertake specific work.

Agreement of detailed work programme and deliverables

At the first meeting for the new Task 36 (2010-2012) the Task Leader and participating members will agree the detailed work programmes and deliverables tabled by the Task Leader.  The meeting will agree the allocation of Topics to participants and/or external consultants and discuss individual member interest in the work programme of each Topic.
An outline of each Topic is presented in following Table and more information for each Topic is provided below the Table. Final, more detailed work programmes will be developed after the first Task meeting.

Details of proposed Topics

Topic 1: Policy Support

Two topics that will be important policy influences in this area will be considered for examination.  These are:

Heat: The use of heat generated from energy from waste plants improves the efficiency of energy conversion and has the prospect of providing low cost, local heat supply.  Nevertheless, apart from countries where there are good district heating networks, currently the heat generated at few energy from waste plants is used.  In some countries and regions there are incentives to improve this situation and in some countries incentives are being considered.  However, there are considerable barriers. This topic will review better ways to use heat from waste to energy plants, including methods to improve the efficiency of heat use.  It will examine heat policies in each participating country and relevant non-participating countries, the mechanisms used or proposed for heat support and the degree of success such mechanisms have achieved. It will also examine the options for chilling using absorption cooling in combination with CHP applications. 

Biogenic content of waste: There is increasing interest in recovering biogenic energy from waste, but for many countries/regions incentives are linked to the easily biodegradable fraction like food or animal waste only.  Monitoring and measuring the biogenic fraction of solid waste is not straightforward, due to the heterogeneous nature of waste and the number of samples that need to be taken to obtain representative results.  This work will review proposed methodologies for monitoring or measurement of the biogenic content of waste and policies for inclusion of the biogenic content of waste in renewable energy targets. This work will be aimed at regulators as well as national and local policy and decision makers.

Topic 2: Integration of processes for optimising resource recovery

Increasingly countries are interested in obtaining maximum resource recovery from waste streams.  This includes development of technologies to optimise chemical, material and energy recovery from waste in one facility; the production of solid recovered fuels from the residual fraction of waste after recycling; and the development of small scale facilities.  Across Europe and in Japan and the North America there is interest in integrating the production of feedstocks for second generation biofuels (biodiesel or bioethanol) with waste treatment technologies, with specific research programmes aimed at this in countries such as the USA and in Europe. In Europe and Japan there is also interest in producing solid recovered fuels that are optimised specific energy needs.

This work will provide a techno-economic feasibility study of current options for optimised waste processing and how energy recovery fits within these options.  This will include a review of current practice, what is being proposed and the factors that are driving the proposals e.g. energy efficiency, quality standards, recycling/materials recovery.  The work will also examine the potential for waste to ethanol and, together with Topic 4 (below) provide an indication of the life cycle assessment (LCA) impact of different options.  It will include:    

• Solid recovered fuel (SRF) production, quality standards, conversion to high value products and co-combustion with biomass.
• Improvements in efficiencies of energy recovery, particularly at small scale.
• Biological conversion systems (e.g. biogas generation or biofuel production for heat and power or upgrading to vehicle fuels etc.)

Among the technologies this work will examine we will include anaerobic digestion (AD) of the organic fraction of the waste from such facilities.  In undertaking this work we will link to Task 37, which is examining optimisation of the AD of specific wastes relevant to this work. 

Topic 3: Emerging small scale energy recovery from waste

There is a growing interest in developing small-scale energy from waste for rural areas of developed countries (such as Canada and Sweden) and for application in developing countries and emerging economies.  However, there is no guide to best practice for small-scale plant and no techno-economic appraisal.  This Topic activity will review current applications and available technologies for treatment of <50,000t/annum, providing a techno-economic review and will examine the need for further development to decrease costs.

Topic 4: Life Cycle assessment of waste management and energy recovery options

In the 2007-2009 period the Task has undertaken a life cycle assessment (LCA) based on greenhouse gas emissions to compare waste management options for the residual fraction of municipal solid waste after recycling.  This work is very relevant to waste management in participating nations.  It is proposed to expand the work to include assessment of key emerging options for the management of waste and energy recovery, for example to examine the LCA of anaerobic digestion of solid waste.  This will include a sensitivity analysis of the options outlined in Topic 2 above.

Topic 5: Management of residues from energy recovery and quality standards

This topic will examine the management of residues (i.e. bottom ash and residues from air pollution control systems) from energy recovery.  The work will examine the quality of residues from different energy recovery technologies and management options, such as those available to remove chlorine or heavy metals.  The topic will include evaluation of the potential to manage issues by design of the front end of the energy recovery process to decreases the cost for after care.

Topic 6: Update of work on fine particle emissions

This work is a proposed revision and update of previous work in the area.  This topic may change depending on the priorities of the participating countries.

Schedule and milestones:

The first Task meeting of the new Task 36 (2010-2012) will take place in Trondheim, Norway on May 26-28th 2010.  At this meeting the topics will be refined and allocated to specific topic leaders and the work will begin.

The key milestones for the Task are the completion dates for data collation for each topic, interim and final reports; these are: