Background and my vision for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) treatment in Indonesia and Uganda Antonie de Wilde SATE PTE LTD. I. Background In 2013, I led a delegation of Indonesian provincial council heads of public works, and officials of the ministries of energy and mining (ESDM), economic planning and development (BAPPENAS), and state-owned companies (PLN and Pertamina) to explore what was done in the Netherlands and Sweden to resolve the problem of Municipal Solid Waste. Besides visiting actual facilities in the Netherlands (HVC in Alkmaar, AVB in Amsterdam and Boras in Sweden), I organized a series of lectures by Swedish and Dutch government officials, European Waste Management Associations and financial institutions. The Dutch Government officials familiarized the delegation with the “ladder van Lansink” as shown in figure 1.
Figure 1: Ladder van Lansink basis for Government of Netherlands waste management policies since 2002
However more intriguing was the possibility to actually use waste as a resource. The examples of HVC, Boras, and AEB, showing that with adequate policies recycling as shown by Sortiva BV, a JV between HVC and CP Groot can be profitable and could actually translate the concept of “using waste as a resource”. The basic question, that came from this study tour was, can Indonesia make a quantum leap, in solid waste processing, by adopting the policy message, we learnt from that study tour: look at waste as a resource rather than a burden. In a speech, held to review what was learnt from the study tour on November 7 2013, chaired by Dr. Ir. Dadan Kusdiana, (Secretary General of the Ministry of Energy and Mining
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of the Government of Indonesia), I proposed that challenge. A challenge, which due to the fact that Indonesia, unlike Europe, had not made long-term investments in Waste Management, we in Indonesia should be able to achieve. Thus, rather than go through the 20-30-year learning process of going from landfills to sanitary landfills, to reducing waste by recycling, penalties for dumping waste, etc., the question and the theme I was pre-occupied with, can, through a wise choice of technology, and good leadership, make Indonesia that quantum leap and use waste as a resource? Thus, actually reducing the cost of public works departments, and generating income from waste, so they can improve their services, improve collection rates, and Mitigate Green House Gas emissions.
Figure 2: Slide from MSW discussion with Indonesia Govt. Officials, November 7 2013
This vision, was reinforced by the European Policy on Waste management. Translated in a brochure which can be downloaded from http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/pdf/WASTE%20BROCHURE.pdf However, the brochure, while giving a good introduction, appears to be outdated by newer and in my opinion better policies. ( Including to analysis MSW for recycling of rare earth minerals. A recent EU policy paper identified over 42 minerals which are cheaper to extract from MSW, than to mine directly (see figure 3, below) In the meantime, I have also promoted the concept among my US based ex-World Bank and IFC colleagues, and USA’s Department of Energy. Several options have been studied from incineration, without claiming any credit, the Ecogensus process, is one of the by-products of communicating the vision originally learnt from the waste- pyramid (see figure 1), promoted by the Netherlands Government. But it is a solution which does not have the dangerous by-products such as dioxin when the plastics in the waste are incinerated. While more and more research has now focused on separating the plastics out of the waste and produce gas or oil through a pyrolysis process, the costs for these systems are
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significantly higher (more than 10 times higher than incineration) and only deal with 10 to 15% of the waste.
Figure 3: Minerals which can be recovered from MSW
II. Indonesia Following our introductory work, the Government declared Batam as a pilot project, and under a grant from ADB, Bappenas financed PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (Persero) (“PT SMI”) to prepare financial models to determine the best technological choice and financing model for Batam. Under pressure from Bappenas, Batam tendered twice for a PPP to process their 1,050-ton waste /day. While many local and international companies responded, none was able to come with a bid that was financially acceptable to the Batam City Counsel, as all proposal required at least a tipping fee, some as high as US$40 to as low as US$24 per ton of waste processed. The President of Indonesia, through a presidential decree (PP 18, 2016), provided all Government support to establish Municipal Solid Waste to Energy for seven cities in Indonesia. Unfortunately, again due to the high cost of the proposed solutions, requiring tipping fees of US$24 or more, none of the cities have yet (August 2017) to sign a JV or PPP. III. Ecogensus
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Finally, our US colleagues, tackled the problem. Ecogensus™ developed the capability to convert raw solid waste, otherwise landfilled, into an energy-rich resource with enormous potential benefit for the world (www.ecogensus.com ). The Ecogensus process does not use chemicals, water or any other additives. Rather than separate organics from non-organics, as was done earlier in Boras Sweden, or separate the plastics from organics, as done in pyrolysis processes, the Ecogensus system requires only the separation of glass, metals and rumble, while all other waste is collected, shredded and processed through a patented process, in which molecule changes convert the Municipal Solid Waste into a Green Fuel, which has similar characteristics as if it was biomass. No toxins, no dangerous emissions, but biomass with a caloric content depending on the input, which of course differs from landfill to landfill from over 10,000 kcal/kg in USA and Europe to 7,000kcal/kg (29308 kJ/kg) or less in countries like Indonesia and Uganda, where the waste has still a lower plastic and higher organic content.
Figure 4: Environmental and Social benefits of Ecogensus Fuel
Various international companies such as Technip and SNC Lavelin have tested the technology and confirmed reports from specialized labs, which compared the green fuel process and outputs with relevant EPA regulations. Ecogensus produces the proprietary Ecogensus™ solid fuel, a renewable high-value solid fuel that has a much lower pollution profile than coal. In most cases, coal power plants and coal boiler operators can use this fuel without any facility modifications. IV. Costs As Indonesia is not yet in a position to pay for the high cost of incineration or even anaerobic digestion, it appears, that the technology is indeed the quantum leap we were looking for. While a lot of research has been done on waste processing techniques, few articles are available comparing the cost of the applicable technologies.
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I used as reference an article supervised by the distinguished University of Chicago professors George Tolley and Stephen Berry, available at the internet: (franke.uchicago.edu/bigproblems/team6.pdf ) to compare the cost of the various MSW processing technologies with Ecogensus cost. The article uses data from Singapore for incineration, data from Netherlands (Tilburg) and Belgium (Brecht) for anaerobic digestion and for gasification the TPS Termiska plant in Italy and the Battelle - Colombus plant in Ohio, USA. While there are still a lot of questions to be asked about assumptions used in the model, it gives one of the better examples available in the literature. Besides the pure economic costs from an investment point of view, it also examines the social costs. To compute the net social costs, the authors deducted the total private and external benefits from the total private and external costs. Private costs in each option comprise the annualized capital costs and the yearly operating costs associated with the management of one ton of MSW. External costs arise from the emissions released under each option. As for the private benefits of each option, they are the avoided production costs of electricity generated from the management of each ton of MSW. The external benefits are the avoided costs to the environment that would otherwise have resulted from emissions associated with electricity production in other power plants. As the Ecogensus plant does not produce electricity but green fuel, the external costs and benefits are obviously compared with green fuel production and the related emissions from replacing coal, rather than electricity. The paper utilizes a 7% discount rate, which I also used for the Ecogensus costs to calculate the present value of any costs and benefits. All dollar values quoted were in 2007 US dollars to make a useful comparison I converted these values in 2017 US dollar value. V. Cost Comparison Table 1 below shows the comparison of the four-processing system. The first three systems: incineration, anaerobic digestion and gasification are based on technology systems of 2007. Although I provided the cost in US$ value of 2017, there are some efficiencies made since that time. For example anaerobic systems can be better controlled through the development of new enzymes, but while this improves the reliability (more generating hours/ year), these have made the operating cost more expensive. A shortcoming of this comparison is that it doesn’t take into account the costs and benefits of the increase in recycling. Using the Ecogensus system, have additional private and social benefits as the system now is profitable enough to actually pay for waste. Most importantly it can buy the plastic bottles from scavengers but also provide additional income for poorest of the poor by paying them for every 5 or 10 kg waste collected and delivered an collection trucks. These additional benefits had not been taken into account in the reference article and are therefore not included in the Ecogensus cost and benefits either. An important difference with the other technologies in Table 1, is that the Ecogensus system produces green fuel, and replaces coal, resulting in significant social benefits as the GHG emissions from coal are reduced due to the replacement by Ecogensus Green Fuel. The private costs for incineration include both annualized capital and annual operating cost, which in contrast to the other technologies were not broken out in the article.
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Table 1: Comparing cost of different MSW processing systems
Private costs External costs Total social costs= Benefits per ton MSW Private benefits External benefits Total social costs= Net social costs=
Private costs External costs Total social costs= Benefits per ton MSW Private benefits
External benefits Total social costs Net social costs=
Private costs External costs Total social costs= Benefits per ton MSW Private benefits External benefits Total social benefits= Net social costs=
Incineration Costs per ton MSW Incineration costs per MSW ton Landfill costs Emissions from incineration plant Private costs + External costs Electricity generation Avoided environmental cost associated with electricity generation Private benefits + External benefits Total social costs - Total social benefits
2007 2017 High Low High $53.30 62.93 $5.20 6.14 $6.05 $18.93 7.14 22.35 $64.55 $77.43 76.21 91.41 High Low $41.01 48.42 Low
$23.31 $64.32 $0.23 $13.11
27.52 75.94 0.27
Anaerobic digestion 2007 2017 Costs per ton MSW Low High Low High Annualized capital costs $36.87 45.07 $43.29 $52.91 Yearly operating costs $38.21 46.71 $44.86 $54.84 Carbon emissions from anaerobic digestion process $0.17 0.53 $0.20 $0.62 Private costs + External costs $75.25 92.31 $88.34 $108.37 High Low High Low Electricity generation $10.52 4.71 $12.35 $5.53 Sale of compost $9.68 $11.36 Avoided environmental cost associated with electricity generation $5.98 $2.68 $7.02 $3.15 Private benefits + External benefits $26.18 $17.07 $30.74 $20.04 Total social costs - Total social benefits $49.07 $58.18 $57.61 $68.30 Gasification Costs per ton MSW Annualized capital costs Yearly operating costs Carbon emissions from gasification process Private costs + External costs
2007 Low High $24.23 $29.65 $16.56 $20.24 $2.61 $5.39 $43.40 $55.28 High Low Electricity generation $64.55 Avoided environmental cost associated with electricity generation $36.70 Private benefits + External benefits $101.25 Total social costs - Total social benefits ($57.85) ($45.97)
2017 $28.45 $19.44 $3.06 $50.95
External Cost Total Social Cost Benefits per ton MSW Private benefits External benefits Total social benefits= Net social costs=
High
Low
High
Low
High
Annulized capital costs Yearly operating costs Carbon emission from conversion process (electricity use) Private cost + External Cost High generation of green fuel Avoided environmental cost associated with replacing coal. (assumption US$5/tCo2) Private benefits + External benefits Total social costs - Total social benefits
It is important to read para 3.4 Caveats of the Cost-Benefit Analysis of the reference article, as there are so many assumptions made. However, it still is important to note that both the gasification and the Ecogensus process have not only considerable financial benefits but also social benefits as compared to incineration and anaerobic digestion. VII
Indonesia versus Uganda MSW processing
While both countries would have significant benefits from the use of Ecogensus process, The economic realities, are very favourable for Uganda. The Ecogensus green fuel will replace the current coal use in Cement factories, and the steel industries. The technical officers of Hima cement and Tororo Cement have studied the chemical analysis of Ecogensus green fuel, and indicated that it could replace by 100% the current coal used in their cement production lines. The current cost for coal in Tororo has been between US$130 – US$150.- as the coal is imported from South Africa or Mozambique and has to be transported from Mombasa to Uganda. Ecogensus can be delivered for significant less cost. This allows for a win-win situation, Tororo and/or Hima Cement can reduce their production costs, while the population of Uganda, to start with the city of Jinja, can actually pay for the collection of waste, reducing the water pollution caused by and to implement a world class drinking water monitoring system. The social benefits due to mitigation of emissions from landfill and from coal burning is very significant, each ton of Ecogensus green fuel reduces more than 5.2 tCO2, while the emissions from the use of about 300kWh for the production of 14 ton green fuel is very low due to the fact that most electricity produced in Uganda (84%) comes from hydro. Indonesia stands to benefit by freeing up coal for export, but even more important it will be able to replace a significant amount of coal used in their utilities as shown in table 2. Table 2: Mitigation potential in Indonesia
Waste to Energy Europe (CEWEP) Actuals 2010 Waste Processed for Energy Green Ecogensus fuel produced Mitigation potential VIII
73 million ton
Indonesia Potential Based on 200 kg/ household 46 million ton 30 million ton Ecogensus fuel 159 million tCO2
Summary
In comparison with traditional MSW processing such as incineration, anaerobic digestion, gasification, Ecogensus is clearly not only the cheapest, it also brings the most environmental
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benefits. Further analysis with Plasma Gasification Melting and Pyrolysis, will be made in the near future, although from a cost perspective it is already well established that these technologies are more expensive than incineration and thus more expensive than Ecogensus fuel system. Based on investment cost per ton of waste, table 3 gives a clear summary. Table 3 Annualized capital and operating expenses per MSW ton for different technologies