Emissions from Waste-to-Energy in Germany: Development and status today

“Waste incineration is an ancient technology, the installations are badly polluting the environment and threatening public health” – opinions like these are still common among the general public in Germany, despite the fact that great technological advances have been made and that modern Waste-to-Energy plants now have minimal environmental impacts.

This attitude is partly due to mistakes made in the past. In the early stage of the ecology movement in the 1970 and 1980s operators, and the incineration lobby in Germany at the time, did not respect the justified concerns and demands of the public for environmentally friendly waste treatment installations. On the contrary, they tried to appease the critics and denied the existence of ecological problems coming from the incineration plants. The public opposition formed at that time has not yet grasped the technological improvements that have been made, and this can usually be observed when new projects are discussed.
This article aims to give an overview of the development of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) technology and to provide reliable information about the current technological status of Waste-to-Energy facilities in Germany, which are characterized by the high standard of flue gas treatment systems used at the plants.
The article also outlines the technological development of WtE over the last decades and its current status in comparison to other thermal waste treatment methods – co-incineration in cement kilns and in power plants – are discussed based on the emission of pollutants.



Copyright: © Eigenbeiträge der Autoren
Quelle: Jahrgang 2013 (Dezember 2013)
Seiten: 9
Preis inkl. MwSt.: € 0,00
Autor: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Peter Quicker
Johann Hee
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