NAWTEC10-1009 WASTE TO ENERGY STRATEGY AND APPROACH FOR IRELAND

ABSTRACT Waste to Energy (WTE) is a viable and vital resource to Ireland. Due to its geographic location, strategically located between the U.S. and Europe, Ireland has inherent advantages when it comes to gaining technical knowledge. As an island country with its size it has exaggerated waste elimination problems. Power generation in Ireland is distorted by the size of the island and Irelands recent high tech business boom has had an affect too. These two items, power and waste, overlap and can be addressed (in part) with one solution. Products not produced in Ireland are imported. The residue of these products is garbage. mSTORY The traditional form of waste management is landfill. In an island country this is only practical as long as landfill land is available. Permitting for new sites is hard to get and the type of waste being deposited in landfills is changing. When the microchip and pharmaceutical factories arrived in Ireland they brought prosperity. They also changed the kinds of refuse created on the island. These plants A common method of sorting MSW is classification. The current technology of mechanical classification is functional, complicated and expensive. But it is a viable technology ready to use and off the shelf. Labor can be competitive with mechanical classification when it comes to price. Methane generated from fermenting MSW i