3.4        Economic Implications

Modern incineration is capital-intensive, but it can be a cost effective and sustainable practice and is recognised in many cases as being the Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO). Investing in energy-from-waste schemes may make economic sense as BPEO and appeal to companies or regions facing:

·         high heat/energy needs,

·         above average landfill costs/local landfill shortages,

·         above average energy transmission costs,

·         large urban concentrations.

Nearly all waste-to-energy plants are in local authority hands. On the one hand these plants often face significant upgrading to meet new standards, while on the other hand costs are generally higher than landfill. Furthermore, reliance on incineration could restrict the choice of future disposal options, because the high fixed costs of waste to energy plants require long-term contracts.

Therefore, installers look for certain conditions for investment in order to succeed:

·         an appreciable saving on landfill costs,

·         a predictable market for heat and power,

·         a guaranteed supply of waste to keep the plant burning at maximum capacity.

When energy-from-waste is competitive with other power generation processes it provides important economic benefits. In fact, five per cent of Europe's domestic energy needs could be met through energy recovered from waste and every three tonnes of MSW burnt for energy saves one tonne of coal. Half of the coal imports to Western Europe could be met through energy-from-waste - a 10% increase in the use of MSW to generate energy would save two million tonnes of coal per year.

3.5        Political Implications

Recently the rising landfill costs have prompted authorities to reconsider burning waste. More and more government support facilitates the re-evaluation of incineration projects as combined heat and power plants. The long-term future, however, remains uncertain, as the increased scrutiny and regulation on incinerators has sharply curtailed the construction of new facilities.

Incinerator operators also continue to face aggressive challenges in permitting their facilities, because the public believes that incineration is environmentally unacceptable. Waste incineration is seen as dirty, contributing to acid rain, the greenhouse effect and respiratory complaints. By now this popular view is obsolete - modern furnace technology, combined with efficient wet and dry 'scrubbing' systems, produces very clean emissions. Devotees of incineration insist that it is an environmentally friendly mode of disposal and their effort contributes to three emerging trends concerning the further maximization of waste incineration:

·         more energy-from-waste: an increase in the number of new facilities being built – especially as landfill availability is predicted to decrease

·         less regulatory pressure entailing a wider use of so-called 'economic instruments' such as carbon tax, tradable permits etc.

·         further recycling of residues from incineration: the bottom ash is frequently used as a roadbed material; fly ash and other scrubber residues will have to be stabilised either by cold stabilisation with cement or by thermal processes such as vitrification.

Using waste to supply useful energy is a well-established method of obtaining added value before final disposal. This will be especially important where final disposal options become more limited and in situations where environmental and economic costs (including collection and transport) of recycling are high and where the practical optimum for materials recovery has been reached. For example, if 25% recycling of MSW is reached, that leaves some 75%, which can be used for energy recovery.