Navigating waste to energy

Mapping facilities in the U.S. that are producing energy from waste is an interesting challenge. Renewable Energy from Waste (REW) magazine may be the first publication to have taken on such an endeavor. The total number of all mass-burn, refuse-derived fuel, anaerobic digestion (AD), gasification and landfill gas facilities in the U.S. adds up to hundreds of facilities. It is a worthwhile venture to place these facilities on a map because it provides an interesting picture of waste conversion activities throughout the U.S. It is possible to see trends not only in overall waste conversion technologies, but also to see which technologies have more traction in certain regions or states.

For example, Ohio and California lead in the number of anaerobic digestion facilities. As suspected, incineration is prevalent in areas with limited landfill space such as in the Northeast and in Florida. What may be surprising to some are the five mass-burn and four refuse-derived fuel (RDF) facilities in Minnesota. The curious person also may want to further find out what regulations or incentives make waste-to-energy (WTE) attractive in areas where many facilities exist. On the contrary, in areas that are lacking waste conversion facilities, it may be worth considering what factors are stopping developers from locating in those areas.

This map and subsequent list of facilities will help shed light on some of these pressing questions. REW plans to publish an updated version of these lists and maps as we track the development of these facilities. It will be interesting to find out what this map will look like two years from now when many projects currently in the pipeline will be operational.
 

Acknowledgement. Various sources helped make the list and map possible, including the American Biogas Council, the Energy Recovery Council, the Gasification Technologies Council, the Canadian Resource Recovery Council, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP) and Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc. (GBB). We may not be aware of all waste conversion facilities. If you know of any such facility continuously operating at a commercial scale that was not included on the list, send an email to ksmith@gie.net.

Click here to see the map.