Targeting energy generation and carbon footprint for waste management and processing

Waste to Energy (WTE) processing carries a trade-off between energy extractionfrom the waste and the energy for waste management - collection, transport and treatment. Major performance indicators are the Primary Energy Savings (PES), Carbon Footprint (CFP) and especially the cost. This presentation analyses the significance of the factors in this trade-off introducing a new indicator - the Waste Energy Potential Utilisation (WPU). The results indicate that the impact of the logistics and energy distribution can be significant, and distributed WTE architectures can be good candidates for waste processing, subject to further economical and environmental conditions