Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
for municipal waste in Sweden. As can be seen, energy recovery is the treatment method for
almost half of the municipal waste today. This development is mainly a result of recent
regulations in the waste management system aimed at decreasing landfill; the introduction of
a tax on landfill in 2000, at present 46.3 €
4
/ton (Ministry of Finance, 2005a) and a ban on
landfill of combustible waste from 2002 and from 2005 also of organic waste (Ministry of the
Environment, 2001).
Material
recovery
Biological
treatment
Energy
recovery
Landfill
1%
9%
33%
47%
10%
Hazardous
waste
Figure 1. Treatment methods of municipal waste in 2004, total amount 4.2 million tons (Swedish
Association of Waste Management, 2005b).
Capacity for waste incineration is currently increasing and is forecast to increase from 2.8
Mton in 2002 to 4.9 Mton in 2008, if all planned projects are carried out (Swedish
Association of Waste Management, 2004), resulting in a total of 40 waste incineration plants.
Despite these investments there will still be a lack of treatment capacity. The fact is that
quantities of waste are also increasing, between 1985 and the present by some 2-3% per year.
If this trend is not broken, additional waste treatment capacity will also be needed after 2008.
Waste incineration and district heating
The role of waste as a fuel makes it part of the energy system. Therefore, the use of waste
as a fuel is dependent on such factors as the prices of other fuels used, legislation, and policy
instruments in the energy system. The value of using the waste is higher when the prices of
e.g. fossil fuels or biofuel increase. Energy taxation in Sweden has had a significant effect on
what fuels are used in the DH systems, since heat from fossil fuels has been heavily taxed.
5
There has been a major shift from an almost total dependency on oil up until 1980 to a
diversified supply where renewables represent a substantial proportion. This can be seen in
Figure 2. A historical survey of the development of the DH sector can be found in Sjödin
(2002).
4
An exchange rate is 1 € = 9.40 SEK is used throughout this chapter (January 2006).
5
The carbon dioxide tax is at present 0.1 €/ton. More details of the energy taxation can be found e.g. in (Holmgren,
2006).
