World Energy Crisis: Can Waste-to-Energy Make a Meaningful Contribution?

As I review the few cleantech business plans I receive each week, I often find myself reminded of what Donald Trump famously said, “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.”  I can’t think of an area to which that applies more than clean energy and the migration away from fossil fuels. If we’re going to get there, it will require some big ideas, which means not wasting efforts on concepts that don’t scale.

Let’s think about municipal solid waste (MSW) for a moment. 130 million tons of MSW are converted annually into energy and other useful products, in an industry that will reach $29 billion by 2015. But while this is nothing at which to sneeze, even if we extract the energy from the chemical bonds of every gram of garbage we produce, it’s still a small fraction of the world’s energy needs.  Compare that to solar power, where our sun showers the Earth with 6000 times more energy each day than all 7 billion of us consume. 

But let’s not forget this about MSW: its disposal constitutes a significant problem — especially for the world’s most densely populated cities. Dealing with MSW in a population center like Mumbai, Bangkok, Beijing, Shanghai, Delhi, Seoul, or Mexico City is a huge responsibility, made even more difficult because of land scarcity and the expense of logistics. Failing to deal with it effectively produces enormous issues with odor, air and water pollution, and disease.

But think about this for a moment.  It’s really a lemons to lemonade analogy.  MSW in these areas is worth a fortune. Imagine having tens of thousands of tons a day of energy-rich biomass that, with the right equipment, can be converted to energy – some combination of electricity and liquid fuels, as well as other useful products.  Then imagine selling all those valuables back to a huge population of energy-starved people, all living and working within a short distance.

As it turns out, one of our 2GreenEnergy clients just sent me a 61-page feasibility study they completed in one of the mega-cities I mentioned above. The highlights: 

Deployment of a patented waste-to-energy technology 

Will be converting 3000 tons of MSW per day into 130 megawatts of electricity plus ancillary products 

Strategic partners, including one of the world’s five largest engineering/construction companies are engaged, and prepared to start the build process (14 months)

A 25-year power purchase agreement is solidly in place

My job, as usual, is to round up investors. Between debt and equity, the total project cost is about $400 million, and the IRR numbers (return rate) look amazing. Please alert me know if you know of anyone who might be interested and can invest at that level.

Looks like “The Donald” is quite right here: Since you have to think, you might as well think big.

- Craig Shields is editor of 2GreenEnergy.com, and author of Renewable Energy -- Facts and Fantasies (Clean Energy Press, 2010)