The Garbage Men Christian Grady, Kunind, William Smith
The Garbage MenChristian Grady, Kunind, William
Smith
Table of Contents What is MSW?
How it’s going to work?
Our Focus?
Calculations!
Feasibility
Credibility
What is MSW? Municipal solid waste is defined as
trash or garbage that is usually thrown away by households.
Americans generated 250 million tons of MSW in 2010.
54% of this waste was sent to landfills.
MSW Distribution
Figure 1: Total MSW generation in 2013
Our goal: turn this waste into useful electric power
MSW to Energy Power Plant
Figure 2. Sample MSW power plant diagram
How MSW to Energy Plants work: Essentially, these plants burn MSW to
power steam turbines. These turbines send electricity to the
power grid. The products of this burning process
are water vapor and harmless ash that is used for aggregate and metals.
The rest of this ash is disposed in landfills but takes up 90% less space than MSW
Our Focus: Shelby County,TN
Shelby County produced 120,000 tons of MSW in 2005 (the latest available complete data).
We used half of this value for our calculations: 60,500 tons.
According to the IWEA, one ton of MSW can yield 550 kWh to the grid.
Energy and Power CalculationsEgenerated=(60,500 tons) x (550 kWh/ton)
=1.66x107 kWh
Power = Egenerated/time= 1.66x107 kWh/8760 hrs
= 1900 W
Power = 1.9 kW
Steam Turbine With this, we can choose a turbine.
Figure 3. A200 steam turbine diagram/description
FeasibilityBelow we have both the data for power plant operating costs and the average cost of energy in Shelby County.
Table 1. Average power plant operating expenses
Table 2. MLWG energy charge per month
Feasability From this data, we can calculate the
operating cost for the year:
And the amount our plant would make every year:
Feasibility From our research, we found a similar
plant and were able to proportionally determine a startup cost of $10.5 million.
This allows us to estimate a payback period:
Table 3. Final results
Resources energy.siemens.com. Web. November 1, 2016. energyrecoverycouncil.org. Web. November 1, 2016. Hodge, B. K. Alternative Energy Systems and Applications. Hoboken: John Wiley
& Sons, Inc., 2010. Print. memphistn.gov. Web. November 1, 2016. powergen.gepower.com. Web. November 1, 2016. wte.org. Web. November 1, 2016. "Memphis Light, Gas and Water - Commercial", Mlgw.com, 2016. [Online].
Available: http://www.mlgw.com/commercial/commercialrates. [Accessed: 29- Nov- 2016].
"Waste-to-Energy (Municipal Solid Waste) - Energy Explained, Your Guide To Understanding Energy - Energy Information Administration", Eia.gov, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm/data/index.cfm?page=biomass_waste_to_energy. [Accessed: 29- Nov- 2016].
"How much does it cost to generate electricity with different types of power plants? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)", Eia.gov, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=19&t=3. [Accessed: 29- Nov- 2016].
The End
Any Questions?