6 ms·

Sweden Needs More Trash, Because It Has Turned All It's Got Into Energy

51 points by exolxe 14y ago

lbolognini 14y ago
I wonder if the cancer rate has increased. Burning trash releases nano-particles in the air that according to some studies increase cancer rate on a 70km radius. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2000/may/18/pollution.uknews http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2000/may/18/pollution....
Bjoern 14y ago
Does anyone have an idea what the impact of burning the trash has on the air pollution?
- whatshisface 14y ago
  Burning trash releases (among other things) dioxins. They are thought to cause cancer, according to the EPA. http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/CFM/nceaQFind.cfm?keyword=Dioxin http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/CFM/nceaQFind.cfm?keyword=Dioxin However, I am sure clever filtering could solve the problem. (Credit where credit is due: A banned user posted a link to a UK guardian article about air pollution due to garbage incineration, giving me a good place to start my research.)
  - jws 14y ago
    Dioxins are created by burning trash at low temperatures, e.g. in a personal burn barrel. At high temperatures dioxins are destroyed. Please don't scare the Swedes.
    - jonke 14y ago
      At high temperatures above 1000 degrees C, dioxin decomposes and the incinerators here are constructed for that. Offical numbers: "The total emissions of dioxins to air in Sweden in 2008 was about 38 grams of TCDD equivalents." Of that 5g is supposed to be from wasteburning. (That number is disputed by greenpeace who claims that to be 114g)
  - jonke 14y ago
    This facility is located in the town where I live: http://utslappisiffror.naturvardsverket.se/en/Search/Plant-page/?pid=1279 http://utslappisiffror.naturvardsverket.se/en/Search/Plant-p...
- exolxe 14y ago
  In theory all that's emitted is carbon dioxide and water after filter and wet-cleaning stages. I'm sure it's not perfect, though it's lightyears better than most comparables, especially considering the reduction in environmental impact from landfills . Here's a pdf on the process: http://www.avfallsverige.se/fileadmin/uploads/forbranning_eng.pdf http://www.avfallsverige.se/fileadmin/uploads/forbranning_en...
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    It's also worth noting that since they primarily burn organic matter (plastics and metals get recycled in other ways), the CO2 that is released into the air is CO2 that was taken out of the air only a few years earlier. (Instead of, say, a few million years ago, as is the case with petroleum products)
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      @throwawayjoke No, this is not an example of a sunken costs fallacy. This is not "in for the penny, in for the pound" sort of logic. Consider that the alternative is letting the organic waste rot, and in the process, release C02 and methane. What they are doing here is removing CO2 temporarily from the atmosphere with solar power, then releasing the CO2 to produce heat which they then convert to electricity. It's solar power, they just use photosynthesis and the general population gets some use out of the middle step. The reason this is not a good idea to do with CO2 that was taken out of the atmosphere millenia ago is that 1) we don't want that much CO2 back in the atmosphere, and 2) we don't want that much CO2 back in the atmosphere that fast. Doing it in the short term, unlike in the long term, is not creating "unplanned" conditions.
    - throwajoke 14y ago
      isn't this just the sunk-costs fallacy? Notice how it seems to be an argument, but you're just anchoring to burning things from "a few years ago" is better than from "a few million years ago." In fact the net effect is the same. If you have a house and a tornado rips off an extension, the effect is the same as if the tornado rips off a much older extension - it just doesn't feel like it.
- jonke 14y ago
  For those interested http://utslappisiffror.naturvardsverket.se/en/Emissions-to-Air/ http://utslappisiffror.naturvardsverket.se/en/Emissions-to-A... (Sweden) http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/tri10/nationalanalysis/index.htm http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/tri10/nationalanalysis/index.... (USA)
hansbo 14y ago
In my home town of Trollhättan, the entire public transportation network was driven on biogas from the organic trash of the people. While sorting the garbage into organic/inorganic was a bit of a pain, the result was really impressive.
- Maakuth 14y ago
  A bit OT, but I sure hope you trolls can resume building Saab cars soon. I understood they're going to be some sort of electric vehicles?
martinkallstrom 14y ago
The municipality in my city Linköping, Sweden has actually made a really impressive business model out of this. I pay them to pick up my garbage twice every month, and then I pay them to heat my house by burning that same garbage. And they have me put organic waste in special green bags that are separated from the other garbage using computer vision, making bio gas that I pay for to drive my car on.
- wim 14y ago
  Yep, the system is quite clever, and of course we're also paying for the buses here in Linköping, driving on the same bio gas
- jonke 14y ago
  I also pay for a second bin to throw garden waste into. I could probably goto Jordcentralen later and buy it back as soil.
- gosub 14y ago
  It's like you are selling them an energy source for a negative amount of money.
zurn 14y ago
Same discussion from 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4706196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4706196
Wintamute 14y ago
Wait, isn't it better to actually recycle this stuff, rather than just burn it? By burning it aren't we forever losing access to that physical matter by just turning it into heat radiation? What if we need it later? EDIT: It sounds like the Swedes mainly burn the organic waste, and recycle what can be recycled. If that is the case, fair enough. Would have liked to see discussion about this in the article, seems fairly key.
- maxerickson 14y ago
  The energy released is stored in the chemical bonds of the material being burned. Matter is neither created nor destroyed in the process. Some of it "goes up in smoke", but we can use plants to capture those things back out of the air (either the green things or energy intensive industrial ones) .
  - Wintamute 14y ago
    Yeah, mainly correct but a small part of the matter is lost. That part which escapes from the system into space as IR radiation is practically speaking ever beyond our grasp. Its the Law of Conservation of matter/energy.
    - maxerickson 14y ago
      Human energy utilization is a fraction of a fraction of the solar energy that moves in and out of the earth system. Heat lost from burning is not something worth worrying about right now.
- INTPenis 14y ago
  You are correct in your assumption. However it's silly to say that we need to import trash. I've lived in cities like Helsingborg, Landskrona and Malmö, in several different apartments, and only ONCE have I had the facilities to dispose of organic waste separately. So I think it's much better to do a national campaign and force landlords to implement organic waste disposal, hand out those brown paper bags some get from their landlord, before we decide to start importing trash.

51 points by exolxe 14y ago

I wonder if the cancer rate has increased. Burning trash releases nano-particles in the air that according to some studies increase cancer rate on a 70km radius. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2000/may/18/pollution.uknews http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2000/may/18/pollution....

Bjoern 14y ago

Does anyone have an idea what the impact of burning the trash has on the air pollution?

whatshisface 14y ago
Burning trash releases (among other things) dioxins. They are thought to cause cancer, according to the EPA. http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/CFM/nceaQFind.cfm?keyword=Dioxin http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/CFM/nceaQFind.cfm?keyword=Dioxin However, I am sure clever filtering could solve the problem. (Credit where credit is due: A banned user posted a link to a UK guardian article about air pollution due to garbage incineration, giving me a good place to start my research.)
- jws 14y ago
  Dioxins are created by burning trash at low temperatures, e.g. in a personal burn barrel. At high temperatures dioxins are destroyed. Please don't scare the Swedes.
  - jonke 14y ago
    At high temperatures above 1000 degrees C, dioxin decomposes and the incinerators here are constructed for that. Offical numbers: "The total emissions of dioxins to air in Sweden in 2008 was about 38 grams of TCDD equivalents." Of that 5g is supposed to be from wasteburning. (That number is disputed by greenpeace who claims that to be 114g)
- jonke 14y ago
  This facility is located in the town where I live: http://utslappisiffror.naturvardsverket.se/en/Search/Plant-page/?pid=1279 http://utslappisiffror.naturvardsverket.se/en/Search/Plant-p...
exolxe 14y ago
In theory all that's emitted is carbon dioxide and water after filter and wet-cleaning stages. I'm sure it's not perfect, though it's lightyears better than most comparables, especially considering the reduction in environmental impact from landfills . Here's a pdf on the process: http://www.avfallsverige.se/fileadmin/uploads/forbranning_eng.pdf http://www.avfallsverige.se/fileadmin/uploads/forbranning_en...
- jlgreco 14y ago
  It's also worth noting that since they primarily burn organic matter (plastics and metals get recycled in other ways), the CO2 that is released into the air is CO2 that was taken out of the air only a few years earlier. (Instead of, say, a few million years ago, as is the case with petroleum products)
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    @throwawayjoke No, this is not an example of a sunken costs fallacy. This is not "in for the penny, in for the pound" sort of logic. Consider that the alternative is letting the organic waste rot, and in the process, release C02 and methane. What they are doing here is removing CO2 temporarily from the atmosphere with solar power, then releasing the CO2 to produce heat which they then convert to electricity. It's solar power, they just use photosynthesis and the general population gets some use out of the middle step. The reason this is not a good idea to do with CO2 that was taken out of the atmosphere millenia ago is that 1) we don't want that much CO2 back in the atmosphere, and 2) we don't want that much CO2 back in the atmosphere that fast. Doing it in the short term, unlike in the long term, is not creating "unplanned" conditions.
  - throwajoke 14y ago
    isn't this just the sunk-costs fallacy? Notice how it seems to be an argument, but you're just anchoring to burning things from "a few years ago" is better than from "a few million years ago." In fact the net effect is the same. If you have a house and a tornado rips off an extension, the effect is the same as if the tornado rips off a much older extension - it just doesn't feel like it.
jonke 14y ago
For those interested http://utslappisiffror.naturvardsverket.se/en/Emissions-to-Air/ http://utslappisiffror.naturvardsverket.se/en/Emissions-to-A... (Sweden) http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/tri10/nationalanalysis/index.htm http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/tri10/nationalanalysis/index.... (USA)

hansbo 14y ago

In my home town of Trollhättan, the entire public transportation network was driven on biogas from the organic trash of the people. While sorting the garbage into organic/inorganic was a bit of a pain, the result was really impressive.

Maakuth 14y ago
A bit OT, but I sure hope you trolls can resume building Saab cars soon. I understood they're going to be some sort of electric vehicles?

martinkallstrom 14y ago

The municipality in my city Linköping, Sweden has actually made a really impressive business model out of this. I pay them to pick up my garbage twice every month, and then I pay them to heat my house by burning that same garbage. And they have me put organic waste in special green bags that are separated from the other garbage using computer vision, making bio gas that I pay for to drive my car on.

wim 14y ago
Yep, the system is quite clever, and of course we're also paying for the buses here in Linköping, driving on the same bio gas
jonke 14y ago
I also pay for a second bin to throw garden waste into. I could probably goto Jordcentralen later and buy it back as soil.
gosub 14y ago
It's like you are selling them an energy source for a negative amount of money.

zurn 14y ago

Same discussion from 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4706196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4706196

Wintamute 14y ago

Wait, isn't it better to actually recycle this stuff, rather than just burn it? By burning it aren't we forever losing access to that physical matter by just turning it into heat radiation? What if we need it later? EDIT: It sounds like the Swedes mainly burn the organic waste, and recycle what can be recycled. If that is the case, fair enough. Would have liked to see discussion about this in the article, seems fairly key.

maxerickson 14y ago
The energy released is stored in the chemical bonds of the material being burned. Matter is neither created nor destroyed in the process. Some of it "goes up in smoke", but we can use plants to capture those things back out of the air (either the green things or energy intensive industrial ones) .
- Wintamute 14y ago
  Yeah, mainly correct but a small part of the matter is lost. That part which escapes from the system into space as IR radiation is practically speaking ever beyond our grasp. Its the Law of Conservation of matter/energy.
  - maxerickson 14y ago
    Human energy utilization is a fraction of a fraction of the solar energy that moves in and out of the earth system. Heat lost from burning is not something worth worrying about right now.
INTPenis 14y ago
You are correct in your assumption. However it's silly to say that we need to import trash. I've lived in cities like Helsingborg, Landskrona and Malmö, in several different apartments, and only ONCE have I had the facilities to dispose of organic waste separately. So I think it's much better to do a national campaign and force landlords to implement organic waste disposal, hand out those brown paper bags some get from their landlord, before we decide to start importing trash.