power issue

The electricity tariff will be lowered starting from 1/3/2009. The reason: lower oil prices from US$140 per barrel to US$43 per barrel. A lower tariff will be translated to lower electricity bills for the consumers, household and industry alike. At present, the consumers are paying 21.8 cents per kilowatt per hour if their consumption does not exceed 200 kwh.

Although I welcome any move to ease the burden of the people, we need to ask the conventional wisdom behind this move. Do we really need cheaper tariff or we need energy efficiency? Or perhaps we can turn to renewable energy. Notice that the tariff fluctuates at the mercy of the oil price. Should we keep on rely on the oil to power up our electrical appliances? Although our politician seems to think that mother earth keep on growing oil so what we need to do is keep on digging, I think we are wiser than that.

Malaysia, like most of the developing countries, is facing an increase of the generation of waste and problems that entails the disposal of this waste. Overall, the local communities generate 16, 000 tons of domestic waste per day and the amounts per capita vary from 0.45 to 1.44 kg per day depending on the economic status of the areas concerned. On average, waste generation is about 1 kg per capita per day.

Waste is grouped into three different categories in respect of disposal;
1. Solid waste
2. Medical waste
3. Hazardous waste

According to study by E. Grant Anderson in five states (Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan) represent 70% of the total amount of waste in the country, the composition of waste is shown in figure 1. We can see that 64% of the waste is domestic waste.
Municipal solid waste in Malaysia is under the responsibility of the public sector, although the government has contracted out part of the municipal solid waste management services to private contractors under the privatization program. The Municipal Solid Waste management (MSWM) services account for a high percentage of the municipal budgets as waste management and planning are under municipal responsibility. On average, 50% of the municipal operating budgets are spent on MSWM and 70% is spent on collection of waste.

In Kuala Lumpur, 80% of all waste is collected. In order to improve collection and transfer services and also to overcome the financial constraints of local municipalities, private companies are being invited to bid for privatization-cum concession agreements for MSWM services. Private companies are allowed to form joint venture companies that have the financial resources and experience to win collection contracts from municipal authorities, and to design and to design and build transfer stations and landfills, or any final disposal systems.

Presently, there are 3 types of waste disposal categories – solid waste disposal and incineration, medical waste incineration and hazardous waste incineration. The disposal of solid waste is done solely through landfill. There are 168 disposal sites throughout the country, of wgich only 7 are sanitary landfills. The rest are open dumps and about 80% of these dumps have been filled up to the maximum and have to closed in 2005. The federal government had spent RM20.9 million to build 9 sanitary landfills and upgrade 27 existing landfills in 34 designated areas. These measures are, however insufficient to overcome the problem of waste disposal as the waste generation rate is increasing rapidly due to high population growth and urbanization.


Why waste-to-energy?
Imagine a machine that can turn anything into fuel by using pollution-free processes like heat and preasure. Imagine wastes from landfills, refuse from poultry farms, sludge and sewage from city sewers are used to generate electric. Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), a technology adopted from India, enables power generating where the fuel is derived from Municipal solid waste via series of process like separation, shredding and drying

Garbage does not contain as much heat energy as coal. It takes one ton of garbage to equal the heat energy in 500 pounds of coal. USA has 90 waste-to-energy plants. Waste –to-energy plants generate enough electricity to supply almost 3 million households. However, it cost more to generate electricity at a waste-to-energy plant that it does at a coal, nuclear, or hydropower plant.

On the other hand, the major advantage of burning waste is that it reduces the amount of garbage we bury in landfills. Burning waste substantially reduces the amount of trash going to landfills. Waste-to-energy plant disposes of waste of 40 million people.

Similar to fossil fuel power plants, MSW power plants discharge used water. Pollutants build up in the water used in the power plant boiler and cooling system. In addition, the cooling water is considerably warmer when it is discharged than when it was taken. These water pollutants and the higher temperature of the discharged water can upon its release negatively affect water quality and aquatic life. This discharge usually requires a permit and is monitored.
Solid Waste Generation

The combustion of MSW reduces MSW waste streams, reducing the creation of new landfills. MSW combustion creates a solid waste called ash, which can contain any of the elements that were originally present in the waste. MSW power plants reduce the need for landfill capacity because disposal of MSW ash requires less land area than does unprocessed MSW. However, because ash and other residues from MSW operations may contain toxic materials, the power plant wastes must be tested regularly to assure that the wastes are safely disposed to prevent toxic substances from migrating into ground-water supplies. Under current regulations, MSW ash must be sampled and analyzed regularly to determine whether it is hazardous or not. Hazardous ash must be managed and disposed of as hazardous waste. Depending on state and local restrictions, non-hazardous ash may be disposed of in a MSW landfill or recycled for use in roads, parking lots, or daily covering for sanitary landfills.

Land Resource Use
MSW power plants, much like fossil fuel power plants, require land for equipment and fuel storage. The non-hazardous ash residue from the burning of MSW is typically deposited in landfills.

Electricity can be generated by burning Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) as fuel also called waste to energy (WTE) plants, are designed to dispose of MSW and to produce electricity as a byproduct of the incinerator operation.

The term MSW describes the stream of solid waste (“trash” or “garbage”) generated by households and apartments, commercial establishments, industries and institutions. MSW consists of everyday items such as packaging, grass clippings, furniture, clothing, bottles, food scraps, newspapers, appliances, paint and batteries. In does not include medical, commercial and industrial hazardous or radioactive waste, which must be treated separately.
MSW is managed by combination of disposal in landfill sites, recycling, and incineration. MSW incinerators often produce electricity in WTE plants.

Perhaps, apart from changing habit in our electricity consumption, a more proactive effort perhaps is by turning our municipal solid waste into energy.