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How We Differ
Let’s begin with the biggest differences. Conventional technologies, primarily coal and gas, cause varying degrees of environmental damage just to produce their fuel – mining and drilling. They simply consume finite resources to produce power. Burning coal can produce large amounts of pollution in the process. Gas, relative to coal, is considered “clean.”
The primary environmental concern of Hydropower is the damming of rivers. While some regulations do not classify Hydro as renewable, it does not produce emissions nor does it consume resources and thus is a renewable clean energy source.
Solar, Wind and Tidal power are considered clean and green renewable since they do not have emissions nor do they consume resources and they reduce pollution by offsetting pollution from conventional power sources.
Waste to Energy classifies as renewable and it has the following additional benefits:
- It recycles by utilizing already discarded resources.
- It has a small footprint and is so clean it can be located in urban areas which produce the largest concentrations of waste and where power is most needed.
- It eliminates a variety of sources of pollution by offsetting, reducing landfill gases and eliminating the hazards of dumping wastes in the environment.
Clearly waste to energy technology has various benefits that make it very valuable to a planet overflowing with waste. How do you determine what to look for in the various waste to energy technologies that are emerging?
Clean Solutions provides proven technology to transform various forms of waste to clean energy. Numerous companies make similar statements, so how do we differ? Very few of the emerging waste to energy technologies have successfully demonstrated their ability to reliably perform on a commercial scale and generate a positive cash flow sufficient for short payback periods.
There are certain benchmarks that determine both functional and economic viability. At the very least, you want to look for the following criteria:
- Data = Testing and track record based on commercial volume, minimum of 50 tons processed per day.
- Earth Friendly = Emission results that easily exceed EPA’s or EU air quality requirements. Ultra efficient clean systems require minimal scrubbing and cleanup. Elaborate scrubbing and filtering is both expensive and labor intensive.
- Economics = Positive cash flow based on local tipping fees, kWh rates, labor and fuel prices.
- Design/Reliability = With emerging technologies you obviously do not initially get long term commercial operation track records but you can get warranties and extensive run and operations data.
There are other criteria as well but simply using the above four will quickly filter out the systems that are not likely to steadily produce the desired results.
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