100 years of waste incineration in denmark

1. DET BEGYNDTE PÅ FREDERIKSBERG

100 YEARS OF WASTEINCINERATIONIN DENMARK

From Refuse Destruction Plants

to High-technology Energy Works

By

Heron Kleis, Babcock & Wilcox Vølund

and

Søren Dalager, Rambøll

100 YEARS

OF WASTE

INCINERATION

IN DENMARK

From Refuse Destruction Plants to High-technology Energy Works

By

Heron Kleis, Babcock & Wilcox Vølund

and

Søren Dalager, Rambøll

3

54

1. THE BEGINNING 1930 - 1962IT BEGAN IN FREDERIKSBERG . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 4GENTOFTE INCINERATION PLANT . . . . . . . . .PAGE 7THE NEW PLANT IN FREDERIKSBERG . . . . . .PAGE 9AARHUS INCINERATION PLANT . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 11VØLUND – AN ESTABLISHED SUPPLIER . . . . . .PAGE 14WHATEVER HAPPENED TO COPENHAGEN? . . .PAGE 16THE GERMAN OCCUPATION

1940-45 AND THE POST-WAR ERA . . . . . . . . .PAGE 17

2. THE BREAK-THROUGH 1963 - 1989INCINERATION RE-EMERGES IN THE 1960S . . .PAGE 20THE POLLUTION BOARD AND

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT . . . .PAGE 27THE ENERGY CRISES OF 1973 AND 1979 . . .PAGE 29THE DIOXIN DEBATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 30

3. FROM DISTRICT HEATING TO

COMBINED HEAT AND POWER 1990 - 2003CHP AGAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 34ENERGY 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 35TAXES AND SUBSIDIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 36THE PLANTS OF TODAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 37

4. THE FUTURE AFTER 2003BEST AVAILABLE TECHNIQUE (BAT) . . . . . . .PAGE 40THE CHALLENGES OF TOMORROW . . . . . . . .PAGE 44

POSTSCRIPT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 46MUNICIPAL WASTE INCINERATION PLANTS IN

DENMARK AND THE FAROE ISLANDS . . . . . .PAGE 47LITERATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 48

CONTENTS

In September 2003 the Municipality of Frederiksbergcelebrated its centenary as the first municipality inDenmark ever to supply its inhabitants with districtheating.

The heat was produced on the basis of waste collectedin the municipality. The original district heating plantwas therefore also Denmark’s first incineration plant,and waste has in fact been incinerated in at least oneplant in Denmark throughout the period of 1903 to2003.

Waste incineration therefore also celebrated its centen-ary in 2003. Initially, there were only a few plants, butapproximately 40 years ago the situation changed. Itbecame more and more common to exploit the energycontent of the waste for the production of heat, andtoday the technology and pollution control methodsapplied are so highly developed that incineration hasbecome the officially prescribed method for the treat-ment of incinerable waste in Denmark.

Consequently, Denmark has achieved a leading posi-tion regarding the percentage of waste incinerated andknow-how in the area.

During this 100-year period the Danish society hasundergone tremendous developments – in terms ofnational income as well as technology – and the way oflife significantly differs from what it used to be 100years ago. These changes have had an impact on theincineration plants too. The waste composition and theway in which the waste is collected and transportedhave changed. The plants have become more compli-cated because of increasingly stringent environmentalstandards. They are now however operated by a lot lessstaff.

The authors of this book have been involved with incin-eration for 50 and almost 40 years, respectively. Theyare both approaching retirement and therefore feel called upon to look back on the first 100 years of wasteincineration in Denmark.

The authors hope that this book will preserve a cornerof Danish history, and naturally they also hope that thereaders will find it interesting.

PREFACE

The bottom ash from both the first and the second incineration plants in the municipality of Frederiksbergwas taken to a crushing plant in front of the old stack.After crushing, the bottom ash was brought by tippers to the area in the front where it was allowed to age priorto being sold.

100 YEARS OF WASTE INCINERATION IN DENMARK PREFACE

municipal solid waste to supply steam,hot water and electricity to the newhospital.

Consequently, in February 1902, itwas decided to establish an incinera-tion plant … with three units from the

British company of Hughes & Stirlingand steam boilers … from Babcock &Wilcox as well as two coal-fired steamboilers, a hot water system and anelectricity generator so that the inci-neration plant in effect became acombined heat and power plant … The

plant was commissioned in September1903’.

This is the introduction of a descrip-tion from 1948 of the – at the timeexisting – second plant for the incine-ration of municipal solid waste inFrederiksberg.

The plant from 1903 was not onlyDenmark’s first waste incinerationplant, but also Denmark’s first districtheating plant, even in the form of acombined heat and power plant. Theplant was located on a site opposite towhat is today Frederiksberg Hospital.

Vølund was there tooThe district heating contract wasassigned to Vølund, which was ayoung company at the time. In thecompany’s 25th anniversary bookfrom 1923, it reads that: ‘A large con-tract … worthy of a mention was thedistrict heating plant located at theincineration plant of Frederiksberg.The piping work was the most compre-hensive work of its kind ever perfor-med, and it had to be concluded in justfour months. It consisted of high-pressure steam pipes, hot water pipesand return water pipes installed intunnels from the boiler system of theplant to all the buildings at Frederiks-berg Hospital and an Old People’sHome, and was later extended by hotwater pipes … leading to the publicbaths of the municipality of Frede-riksberg. A total of 8500 m of pipeswere installed and approximately 800valves and taps were applied. For thiswork Vølund received due recognition,not just because of the good work-manship, but also because of the tighttime schedule within which the com-prehensive work had been performed’.

100 YEARS OF WASTE INCINERATION IN DENMARK

6

In September 1903 incineration wasintroduced as a method for the treat-ment of waste in Denmark.

Even before a municipal reform in1970, Frederiksberg – an enclavelocated in the middle of the capital ofCopenhagen – was one of the smallestmunicipalities by area in Denmark.On the other hand, it was the mostdensely populated one. It is thereforenot surprising that this municipality‘… realised in 1897 that soon it wouldnot be possible to identify sites suit-able for the landfilling of municipalsolid waste within the boundaries ofFrederiksberg … which is why the pos-sibility of establishing a waste incine-ration plant was investigated … With a

view to examining the combustibilityetc. of the municipal solid waste gen-erated in Frederiksberg, a sample wassent by rail to the waste incinerationplant in Hamburg where the waste wasincinerated on a test basis. The resultof the test was that the waste was com-bustible, and much heat was producedso that steam could be generated insteam boilers. Moreover, the quality ofthe bottom ash was good and could beapplied for various technical purposes.

At the same time … in August 1898 ithad been decided to build a complex ofbuildings nearby for a new municipalhospital in Frederiksberg … Anobvious solution was to exploit theheat produced from the incineration of

1. THE BEGINNING

7

IT BEGAN IN FREDERIKSBERG

1. THE BEGINNING

1903-1962

One of the furnaces at Frederiksberg’s firstincineration plant. Source: Frederiksberg Forsyning.

Frederiksberg municipal culture and sports centre, The Boiler Hall. The buildings, whichwere erected in 1903 on the basis of drawings prepared by the chief architect of the Danishstate-owned railway company, Heinrich Wenck, housed Denmark’s first incineration plantuntil 1934. From 1934 to 2000 the buildings were used as a steam heating plant.

The description of the Frederiksbergplant continues: ‘Following a test forthe incineration of Gentofte’s munici-pal solid waste in the rotary kiln atthe incineration plant of Frederiks-berg, the Municipality of Gentoftedecided to establish a new incin-eration plant based on Vølund’srotary kilns. Therefore Frederiksberg suspended its plans for the construc-tion of its own incineration plantpending the operating results fromGentofte’.

The plant in Gentofte – one of themunicipalities in the ‘cocktail belt’north of Copenhagen – was inaugur-ated in 1931 in the presence of PrimeMinister Thorvald Stauning. Theplant consisted of two steam pro-ducing incineration units with a jointcondensing turbine, and the coolingwater was re-circulated across a largewooden cooling tower. It did not onlyincinerate waste from Gentofte, butalso from the adjacent municipalityof Lyngby-Taarbæk.

Collection by motor-driven vehiclesMotor-driven vehicles constructed byVølund and equipped with two sep-arate waste containers collected the

The plant was what would today becalled a batch-fired plant. ‘The wastewas fed to the furnace in batches, anda long time passed until ignition.When this finally happened, anamount of polluted gas and steam wasformed and emitted directly to the air.Even with a very high stack, this couldbe a nuisance to the surroundings.Another negative impact was the for-mation of “bottom ash cakes”, which

consisted of poorly combusted waste’,wrote Vølund in 1936.

Vølund’s former chief engineer, EvaldBlach, noted in 1962 that ‘the plantconsisted of a number of cells, eachwith a capacity of approximately 1 t/h… The manual operation was expensi-ve and the deslagging was difficult,very unpleasant and gave rise to a lotof false air’.

A new plant was plannedBy the 1920s the plant had become toosmall, and in the summer of 1925 thetechnical department of the Munici-pality of Frederiksberg had prepared aproposal for a new plant. The 1948description continues:

‘At that time, however, Vølund hadbrought it to the Municipality’s atten-tion that the machine works of“Aktiebolaget Landsverk” in Lands-krona, Sweden [Vølund’s licensee]was testing the incineration of munici-pal solid waste in a rotary kiln … Theproposal for the new plant … was therefore dropped, and the tested ro-tary kiln was installed by Vølund at theold incineration plant of Frederiks-berg. A number of tests were then carried out until January 1929 … Thetests convinced the Municipality thatthe rotary kiln was perfectly suited forthe incineration of municipal solidwaste – and even better than otherwell-known furnaces – which is whyVølund was requested to prepare aproposal for a new incineration plantbased on such rotary kilns’.

A couple of years passed before a finaldecision was made.

100 YEARS OF WASTE INCINERATION IN DENMARK 1. THE BEGINNING

8

Gentofte incineration plant was inagurated in 1931. The plant was the first plant to be supplied by Vølund.

The adverse impacts of the many landfills of the time, slowly paved the way for the introduction of waste incineration.

GENTOFTE INCINERATION PLANT

9

‘As these [the operating results fromGentofte] fully met everybody’sexpectations, Frederiksberg decided,in November 1932, to establish acompletely new incineration plantbased on Vølund’s rotary kiln system.

The plant was commissioned in …September 1934 … Its central loca-tion is not inconvenient to its neigh-bours, even though it is a rather dense-ly populated housing area.

Only municipal solid waste fromFrederiksberg – not from Copenhagen– is incinerated, and the waste is notseparated or screened, but fed to thefurnaces in the form in which it isdelivered from the municipality.

The municipal solid waste is collectedfrom each property three times a week(every other weekday) … from 6 a.m.to 4.30 p.m. The wagons are drawn bytwo horses as … this has proven to be… by far the cheapest solution, bothin terms of initial cost and the cost ofapplying horse-drawn wagons ratherthan motor vehicles.’

Private hauliers collected the waste.For more information on workingwith horse-drawn wagons (see box onp. 11).

First plant with reception pitAs opposed to the plants in Gentofteand Aarhus (see p. 11), the new plant

in Frederiksberg was from the outsetequipped with a reception pit com-plete with cranes for feeding the waste.

‘The incineration plant is in continu-ous operation six days a week withSunday being the usual day off for theoperating staff. Usually 1 furnace/boiler is operated by 3 shifts of 8hours, each shift consisting of 1 craneoperator, 1 furnace/boiler operator, 1bottom ash discharge operator, 1 bot-tom ash remover, 1 relief man and 2workers at the waste reception from 6a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Hence, for the opera-tion of 1 incineration unit 17 staff perday are required, not including workersfor the operation of the bottom ashcrusher or for cleaning or holiday/


10 11

Prime Minister Th. Stauning (third from theright) visiting Gentofte incineration plant.

THE NEW PLANT IN FREDERIKSBERG

Sectional drawing of Frederiksberg’s second incineration plant. Note the horse-drawnwagon on the right, tipping waste into the waste pit and the crane grab at the top feeding it into the furnace.

waste. Upon arrival at the plant, thecontainers were lifted by a crane fromthe vehicles to the feeding chute ofone of the furnaces. Here, the bottomof the container opened, the waste wasemptied into the chute and the cranelifted the container back to the vehicle.

In time this approach became tooimpractical, and it was decided to fur-nish the plant with a reception pit. Thepit was designed by the consultingengineering company, Rambøll &Hannemann A/S, and was the compa-ny’s first project in the area of wasteincineration.

The plant was in operation until 1970when both municipalities joinedVestforbrænding, see p. 25, and thebuildings were later on demolished.

1. THE BEGINNING

Working withhorse-drawnwagonsIn 1898 Renholdningsselskabet af1898 (The Public Cleansing Com-pany of 1898, in short R 98) got con-cession on the collection and dis-posal of latrine in the Municipality ofCopenhagen. In the 30s it becameclear that the days of latrine collec-tion were about to end, and R 98started to engage themselves in thecollection of municipal solid waste.

In their 100th anniversary book from1998 R 98’s former employee, HelmerSondergaard (born 1911) writes:

‘A friend of mine introduced meto a private haulage contractor inFrederiksberg. We drove withhorses at the time. We had a stable near the centre of themunicipality, and we wateredand fed the horses every day –also on Sundays. We took turnsat doing that. Many of the oldscavengers were shabby; someof them lived on the hayloftabove the stable. They werealmost bums’.


12 13

AARHUS INCINERATION PLANT

This plant was also commissioned in1934. On this occasion the Munici-pality of Aarhus – the second largestcity of Denmark – published a smallfolder written by Holger Eriksen: TheMunicipal Refuse Destructor Plant inAarhus. The folder reads: ‘In manyrespects Aarhus has gained a leadingposition also in the area of sanitation,and at the turn of the century it wasconsidered whether it would be a bet-

ter solution to incinerate the waste rather than to landfill it’. Nothing everbecame of it, though – ‘it was a timewhen no rash decisions were made’ –and in 1911 a new landfill was estab-lished in the municipality.

‘It was not until October 1926 that themunicipality again began to take aninterest in the matter of an incinerationplant’. DSB – the Danish state-owned

Frederiksberg’s second incineration plantshortly before completion in 1934. On theright is the stack of the old plant from 1903,see page 5.

illness relief. At the old incinerationplant, incineration of the same amountof municipal solid waste required 40staff to continuously operate all threefurnaces on week-days and partly onSundays’.

The plant was in operation until 1975and was later on demolished.

Aarhus incineration plant was commissioned in 1934. The front gates were used by the collection wagons exiting the plant.

railway company – wanted to makeuse of the area where the landfill waslocated and asked for the removal ofthe landfill. ‘The rats [on the site] arealive and kicking; they are present inhuge numbers … A subsequent cam-paign mentioned that millions of ratswere there.

Now was the time to act, and thePavement Committee … now workedat full speed. There were many plansto buy farms in the suburbs and zonethe purchased areas for landfills. Butthe municipalities in question … didnot want to move the rat Eldorado totheir preserves.

Also the Lighting Committee nowstarts to make experiments …Maybe itwould be possible to combine the incin-eration plant with the extension of themunicipal power station. The LightingCommittee then goes on a journey…One is impressed by the filth pre-vailing at the British incinerationplants and equally impressed by theunfailing cleanliness found at the in-cineration plant in Cologne. TheCommittee visited the incinerationplant under erection in Hamburg andthen came to Gentofte where Vølund

was erecting the first incinerationplant based on the rotary kiln principle… The Committee agreed that of everything they had seen, there was nodoubt that the Vølund system fromback home was the best’.

GrumblersThe mayor of Aarhus, H.P. Christen-sen, known as the ‘blacksmith’, hadfor many years been a keen supporterof incineration and achieved his aimby strong-arm methods. ‘Of course,some hostility arose – some discontent.People complained about bad odours,dust and fumes – but when has amajor project ever been realised without birth pangs and without professional grumblers having a fieldday?’

The plant, which was equipped withtwo identical units, was establishednext to the municipal power station sothat the steam produced could be sentto the power station and converted intoelectricity and heat. It was ‘first andforemost designed for householdwaste … The household waste has to be collected once or twice a week,and the first big issue was the way in

which the waste should be collected.Vehicles are the order of the day, butan investigation showed that with therelatively short distances to be covered and the many stops along theway the application of motor vehiclesis uneconomical, and the old horse-drawn wagon was therefore selected.

Waste is collected in dedicated horse-drawn wagons equipped with closedcontainers. The body of the wagon hasa hatch in the back and is designed insuch a way that it can be tipped.’

Up we go!‘When the wagon arrives at the in-cineration plant, it drives into thewestern lift and then both the wagonand horses ascend … There has notbeen any difficulties related to liftingthe horses. On the top floor thewagon drives to a free bay, and thebody of the wagon is tipped … so thatthe waste is emptied into the wastepit … Absolutely nobody gets intophysical contact with the waste.When the wagon has been emptied, itdrives on to a lift across the buildingand then descends the same way itascended.


14 15

Horse-drawn wagons at Aarhus incineration plant. The wagons were taken up and down by lifts.

Sectional drawing of Aarhus incineration plant.On the top floor two horse-drawn wagons can

be seen. The one on the right is waiting forthe lift, while the other one is being emptied.

The waste is temporarily stored in …the bay, and subsequently transportedby two scraper conveyors to a vi-brating feeder, which is continuouslymoving back and forth, taking thewaste to a chute that leads to the drying grate of the furnace’. Then fol-lowed an ignition grate and a rotarykiln, cf. sectional drawing. The bottomash was taken to a sorting plant with amagnetic separator ‘so that the bottomash is sorted into three fractions aswell as an iron fraction.

The incineration products have anaverage temperature of approximately1000°C in the flue gas chamber afterthe rotary kiln. The heat contained inthe incineration products is recoveredin a Babcock & Wilcox high-pressureboiler. The rotary kiln system gene-rates very little fly ash – only approxi-mately 2 per cent of the amount ofwaste incinerated … In order to beable to perform a complete cleaning ofthe flue gas both the boiler and theeconomiser are equipped with ‘sootpockets’… and after the economiser aspecial flue gas cleaner capturingapproximately 80 per cent of the flyash has been established so that theflue gas, when emitted from the stackof the incineration plant, is light andfree of solid matter’.

Festive inaugurationOn 24 August 1934 the plant was offi-cially inaugurated. In the eveningthere was a banquet at Hotel Royal.For this occasion a popular Danishnewspaper poet wrote:

NOW WASTE IS GATHERED EVERYWHERE

AND WITH HORSE AND WAGON

BROUGHT TO HERE.

AGAINST THIS ALL CONSUMING FLAME

THE HEAT OF HELL IS VERY TAME!

Plant No. of units Capacity/furnace, t/h Steam Steam Guaranteedpressure temperature steam product.

Guaranteed Achieved bar °C kg/kg wasteAarhus 2 6.25 10 30 425 1.0Frederiksberg 2 6.0 9 12 190 1.0Gentofte 2 4.0 7 16 350 0.9

Table 1: Key plant data for the plants in Aarhus, Frederiksberg and Gentofte

With the three plants in Denmark aswell as three plants in the UK and onein Sweden, Vølund had establisheditself as a supplier of waste incinerationplants.

In 1933 and 1936 the company publis-hed articles in English in DanishForeign Office Journal with a presenta-tion of particularly the Danish plants.The following table containing keyplant data is from the 1936 article.

The guarantee for the plant inFrederiksberg was based on theassumption that the calorific valuewould be 1200 kcal/kg = 5.0 MJ/kg.

Thanks to the company’s other activi-ties, it had become a significant com-pany in the iron and metal industries,which from time to time put up leadercandidates for the industrial unionsand whose opinions could not be dis-regarded.

The plant in Aarhus was closed downin the 50s in connection with an exten-sion of the nearby power station, andthe buildings were demolished. Thewaste was then composted until themunicipality in 1978 inaugurated anew incineration plant (see photo on p. 21). Consequently, they celebratedtheir 25th anniversary in 2003.


16 17

His Majesty King Christian X (in the greysuit in the photo) visited the plant inAarhus on 14 August 1934. To the right ofthe King is the Mayor of Aarhus, H.P.Christensen.

VØLUND – AN ESTABLISHED SUPPLIER

A/S Vølund (A/S = Aktieselskab = Limited company) wasfounded in 1898 on the basis of F.A.H. Petersen & LudvigChristensen’s Machine Factory & Iron Foundry. The com-pany was given its name after Vølund – the ingenious smith– a Nordic mythical character in the Elder Edda.

At the beginning the company primarily produced heatingsystems and steam laundries, for instance to the StateUniversity Hospital in Copenhagen, which was establishedin the period of 1907-10. In 1910 Vølund started makingcrude oil engines for marine propulsion. Later it producedsteam drums and iron structures for, for instance, Forum –a cultural centre in Copenhagen, which was originally builtfor a car exhibition in 1926 and for many years hosted theannual bicycle-race, one of Copenhagen’s flag ship events.In the following years Vølund constructed a bridge connecting Copenhagen with the island of Amager andsupplied steam boilers for e.g. Tuborg Breweries.

In the 30s the company supplied the three incinerationplants in Gentofte, Frederiksberg and Aarhus, ‘the firstcontinuously operating incineration plants in the world’.Before the Second World War, Vølund produced bothhorse-drawn wagons and motor-driven vehicles for the collection of waste.

After the war the company supplied the boiler for the utility plant of Vestkraft in Esbjerg, Jutland, and in the 50slarge tank installations were produced for petrol and oil

companies in Aarhus and Copenhagen. When the amuse-ment park of Tivoli in Copenhagen had to be reestablishedafter the war, they wanted a ferris wheel, which was thendesigned by Rambøll and supplied by Vølund.

In Esbjerg, Vølund opened a factory for the production ofincineration plants, boilers, iron structures etc. Around1960 the company expanded its production of washingmachines. This activity was later divested, but the brandcontinues to exist under the name of Asko Vølund.

Around 1980 the company was divided into sections. Thewaste treatment part was transferred to Vølund EcologySystems, whereas the responsibility for the boiler part wasassigned to Vølund Energy Systems and Vølund Danstoker.In 1992 the Italian industrial group of Ansaldo acquiredthese companies.

Today, Babcock & Wilcox Vølund is further developingVølund’s long-standing expertise in waste incineration.Since 2002 the company has also owned B&S’s W gratetechnology (see separate box on p. 21).

Including B&S’s plants, Vølund’s list of references includes300 incineration units. When measured in this way, thecompany is the largest company of its kind in the world,and the list covers countries as distant as Argentina andTaiwan. Almost 100 units have been supplied to Denmark,55 to Japan, 39 to France, 33 to Sweden and 17 to the USA.

From Vølund to Babcock & Wilcox Vølund

Vølund-manufacturedwaste collection vehicle

from the beginning of the 50s.

In april 1921 Vølund moved into their former head office at Øresundsvej inCopenhagen.

Shortly before the outbreak of theSecond World War Vølund entered acontract for a plant in Basle,Switzerland. The German Occupationof Denmark on 9 April 1940 cut offconnections, and the plant had to becompleted by a Swiss company, whichlater developed into vonRoll Umwelt-technik, which is a well-known com-pany today.

Denmark soon encountered a shortageof almost all imported goods such asfuel and rubber. Substitutes had to befound. Two domestic materials beganto be used, lignite and peat. Copen-hagen Energy provides a fine descrip-tion of the situation:

‘[On 9 April 1940] H.C. ØrstedVærket [power plant in Copenhagen]had coal stored for approximately 5months’ consumption. It soon becamenecessary to conserve the stocks byusing other fuels. Prospects of newcoal supplies were poor, and it took along time to establish domestic pro-duction of peat and lignite.

There was no lack of inventiveness.Fly ash that had been applied forland reclamation purposes was takenback and burned again as there wasstill a small amount of coal in it thatcould be used. Copenhagen Energy’sreserves of waste oil, tar etc. were allused.

Tar waste etc. from cleaned gas pipesmade a contribution. Trade and in-dustry supplied wastes such as wood,shaving and sawdust – everythingcapable of burning could be used. Peatin particular was a problem as it wasoften so moist that it could not be igni-

ted without some prior heating in thefurnaces. Eventually, even dry greenwaste from cemeteries was applied askindling …’

No more than 10°C inchurches and cinemasIn its 75th anniversary book from 1973Vølund writes: ‘During the war a pal-pable shortage of materials naturallyprevailed, but we succeeded in main-taining our production by makingvarious changes such as the introduc-tion of peat gasworks and stationarygenerators. The strict fuel restrictionsalso had a great impact on the compa-ny’s production – also with the sale ofthe production in the heat technicaldepartment. The products of thisdepartment were not interesting in atime when hot water supplies wereprohibited and an indoor temperatureof only 18°C – in museums, churchesand cinemas even only 10°C – wasallowed’.

Rationing and other ‘schemes’ wereintroduced. The Rubber Committeeof the Confederation of Danish In-dustries called upon everybody to sellrubber waste to a product dealer orgive it to a refuse salvager (see sep-arate box).

No data is available on the calorificvalue of the waste incinerated duringthe war at the three existing incinera-tion plants. However, the 1948 de-scription from Frederiksberg states:‘In the period of 1942-47 it has beennecessary to remove peat ash prior toincineration’ and goes on to say thatthe waste collection wagons were‘equipped with roller bearings in the

wooden wheels, which had pneu-matic tyres (temporarily partly steel framed)’.

1. THE BEGINNING

19

In Copenhagen the power stationsstarted to supply district heating to theinhabitants in 1925, and Vølund fol-lowed up on its success in Gentofte,Frederiksberg and Aarhus. Accordingto the 25th anniversary book of I/S Vestforbrænding, which waspublished in 1995, Vølund ‘offered in1935 – free of charge – to build andoperate for six years an incinerationplant located on a site to be madeavailable by the Municipality. This –apparently philanthropic – offer wasnot accepted as it was estimated that acollaboration with a private incinera-tion plant operated under the condi-tions made by Vølund would be un-economical for the Municipality …Moreover, the City Council wanted toreclaim new urban areas by landfilling… and the waste in Copenhagen didnot burst into flames until the twometropolitan incineration plants ofAmagerforbrænding and Vestforbræn-ding were commissioned [in 1970]’.

The last statement is not entirely cor-rect. Until 1970 the Municipality ofCopenhagen disposed of its waste in areclaimed area, and at the end of aday’s work, the waste was set on fire.


18

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO COPENHAGEN? THE GERMAN OCCUPATION

1940-45 AND THE POST-WAR ERA

Open-air burning of waste on a landfill.

L.A.B.’s refuse salvagersUnemployment in the 30s was high.When the Second World War brokeout in 1939, many people thoughtthat unemployment would increaseeven further, and therefore L.A.B. –the National Society for the Com-bating of Unemployment – was estab-lished in order to prepare for the endof the war and massive unemploy-ment.

‘By the end of April 1940 L.A.B. hadthe first refuse salvagers in the streets,because waste was no longer justwaste, but raw materials that could beused for new production. For exam-ple, kitchen waste, including beerslops from restaurants, was processedinto swill. The old pre-war scavengerwho went through the dustbins in hissearch for rags and bottles, wasousted by the L.A.B. man with his bigcarrier cycle …’, writes the Danish historian Erik Kjersgaard.

The L.A.B. man on his carrier cycle.

no longer paid off to repair things.Denmark had become a ‘use-and-throw-away’ society, and the calorificvalue of the waste increased dramatic-ally.

Or, as expressed by Vølund’s EvaldBlach in 1968: ‘The waste composi-tion reflects the way of life in society,and … from the average compositionyou can even read the developmentand welfare state of that particularsociety. The more developed andwealthy a society, the better the waste.The density becomes smaller and thecalorific value higher as the percenta-ge of combustible parts, particularlyeasily combustible parts with a shortburnout time … increases substantially.

The amount of slowly combustibleparts such as coal and coke residues isreduced … On the other hand, thewaste will contain the new syntheticmaterials with an often high calorificvalue and a very short burnout time. Ingreat amounts they may result in analmost “explosive combustion”. More-

over, they often contain unpleasantsubstances such as chlorine and sul-phur’.

Convenience goods were now pur-chased from the supermarket insteadof from the small grocer’s shop, andthe numerous small dairies and slaugh-terhouses were closed down and repla-ced by larger, ‘central’ or ‘united’ fa-cilities.

The municipal power supply compani-es had already before the war begun torecognise the advantages of large-scaleoperations and combined to establishlarger partnerships. It was no longerprofitable to produce power decentral-ly even though this meant that newpower stations had to cool away a sig-nificant part of the fuel energy in con-densing turbines.

Also the municipal gasworks began todisappear one by one. However, inKolding they fought in vain to preser-ve the city’s old gasworks as a wastegasworks.

1. THE BEGINNING

21

The calorific value of the waste in1948 was around 1000 kcal/kg in thesummer and around 1400 kcal/kg inthe winter. It was therefore necessary,particularly in the summer, to use coalas an auxiliary fuel.

Vestforbrænding’s 25th anniversarybook states: ‘The incineration plantsthat existed during the occupation alsohad to incinerate things other thanwaste … In 1944 the resistance move-ment started to remove national re-gisters all over the country as they feared that the Germans would misusethe registers … Thousands and thou-sands of files were taken to Frederiks-berg incineration plant and throwninto the flames – causing the admini-stration of the municipalities concer-ned a great deal of inconvenience.’

After the warThe initial post-war period was a timeof deprivation. Many goods were stillrationed. Vølund’s 75th anniversarybook notes that ‘the post-war recon-struction activities took up everybody’stime and attention, so building “lux-uries”, such as incineration plants,was not really an option until well intothe 50s’.

By the end of the 50s the national eco-nomy had improved, and women star-ted joining the labour force. This en-tailed a radical change in family pat-

terns, which also had animpact on the waste com-

position. The heavy milkbottles were replaced by

milk cartons, cotton diapers by disposable

diapers, and a number ofnew plastic products wereintroduced. Racks with

disposable paper waste bagsreplaced the old dustbins. It


20

In the beginning of the 60s experi-ments with – what is today termed –pyrolysis of waste were made at thegasworks in the municipality ofKolding.

At the time the waste had a calorificvalue of 1300 kcal/kg (=5.4 MJ/kg).The waste was heated to a tempera-ture of 900-1000°C in a retort byheavy fuel oil added in an amount of100 g per kg of waste. This tempera-ture was maintained for approxima-tely eight hours. In the process a gasamount of approximately 0.4 Nm3

per kg of waste with a calorific valueof 3500 kcal/Nm3 (=14.7 MJ/Nm3)was generated.

The gas production turned out to behighly dependent on the content ofplastics in the waste, and it was sug-gested that the target should be toproduce a gas with the calorific valueof 4200 kcal/Nm3 (=17.6 MJ/Nm3)typical of coal gas - by adding pro-pane if need be.

The process was called theDestrugas process, and it was actual-ly used for a while in Kolding, inparallel with the coal gas production.Eventually the municipality of Kol-ding chose incineration instead.Several other municipalities showedan interest in the process, but no full-scale plant was ever established.

In retrospect, the decision of themunicipality of Kolding was probablywise. In recent years, however, thepyrolysis and gasification processeshave attracted renewed interest –mostly in the UK.

During the German occupation waste salvaging was so well organised that there was practically no incinerable waste left for the waste incineration plants. The sign on the vehicle in the photo says: ‘Waste is not a waste when the refuse salvagers get it’.Also note the gas generator in the front of the car.

Waste gasworks in Kolding

The first Danish coal gasworks was established in the city of Odense in 1853,and in 1949 there were around 120 gas-works nationwide.

In 1937/38 the works converted coal in theamount of 665,000 tonnes into 266 millionNm3 of gas, 365,000 tonnes of coke, 32,000tonnes of tar, 2,000 tonnes of ammoniumsulphate and 1,500 tonnes of benzene.

The gas was purified of hydrogen sulphideby marsh ore from the moors of Jutlandbefore being distributed to the consumersthrough a network of cast iron pipes. Thecoke had a calorific value of approximately25 MJ/kg and was applied for heating inprivate stoves or central heating units. Butsince the ash content was around 10 percent, a significant contribution to theamounts of household waste generatedwas made. However, it was difficult to igni-te the coke so a great deal of kindlingwood and paper had to be applied.

The photo below shows Kolding gasworks.In the 60s experiments with waste-basedproduction of gas were made with a viewto developing a waste gasworks. Thephoto on the left shows the construction ofrafters for the waste gasworks.

Top photo: N. Lisberg, 1966. Photo from Kolding municipal archives.Bottom photo: Friis Fotografi.

2. THE BREAK-THROUGH

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The difficult post-war economic situa-tion had put an end to the developmentof incineration plants in Denmark, butVølund’s expertise was upheld, thanksto contracts in France, Sweden and theUSA. It was not until the 1960s thatthe establishment of new plants gathered momentum in Denmark.

At that time a large number of newbuiltup areas – condescendingly calleddormitory towns – began to sprout,and the obvious thing to do was to sup-ply these areas with district heatinginstead of having an oil burner in eachhouse. Growing environmental aware-ness also favoured this solution. Oneof the companies that were very activein the district heating sector wasBruun & Sørensen A/S (B&S) inAarhus, see separate box on p. 21.

Herning was firstOriginally, these district heating sta-

tions were fuelled with fuel oil, butB&S realised that waste was a useful,supplementary source of energy. In1963 a Swedish designed incinerationfurnace was supplied to the municipal-ity of Herning in Jutland. However,soon B&S developed its own type Wgrate system.

From 1965 to 1990 B&S signed newcontracts for waste incineration plantsall over Denmark in rapid succession.Most of these plants were, however,relatively small and few of them stillexist.

Furthermore, plants were supplied toTorshavn on the Faroe Islands andNuuk in Greenland as well as to coun-tries abroad, including Sweden.

Other Danish companies, includingHelsingør Jernskibs- og Maskinbyg-geri, A/S E. Rasmussen (based ontechnology from the American com-

pany of Plibrico) and Staalmontage,supplied plants to various Danishmunicipalities. In some of theseplants the heat produced during incin-eration was not recovered. Thereforethe plants could be located in out-of-the-way places and were typicallyoperated in one shift, Monday toFriday. Staalmontage’s inter-munici-pal plant in Varde near the west coastof Denmark was situated on a down-ward slope. The waste was unloadedon the floor in the reception hall andpushed into the furnace by a loadertractor. At the foot of the slope thebottom ash was discharged. The un-cleaned and 1000°C hot flue gas wasemitted through a stack located ontop of the furnace.

In the 80s the plant in Varde was sub-jected to the first dioxin study perfor-med by the Danish EnvironmentalProtection Agency, see p. 30.


22


1963-1989

INCINERATION RE-EMERGES IN THE 1960S

Bruun & Sørensen A/SBruun & Sørensen A/S (B&S) was founded in 1893 andturned into a limited company in 1937.

In 1960 the company formed a Thermal Department forthe purpose of building waste incineration plants. In theperiod of 1960-67 the company applied a Swedish desig-ned water-cooled forward movement grate, for whichB&S purchased the rights. This type of grate could, how-ever, only be used at plants with a capacity of up to 3.5t/h, which is why the development of a new type of gratewas initiated. The first version of this air-cooled grate –the W grate – was constructed in 1968, and the W gratehas been the distinctive feature of B&S and its successorsever since.

In the beginning of the 70s B&S took over A/S E.Rasmussen’s activities in the area of waste incineration (see pp. 20 and 23).

In the 80s B&S encountered pecuniary embarrassment,and the company was split into several parts. The com-pany succeeded in maintaining its expertise within wasteincineration, initially vested in the company of B&SMiljøteknik A/S, later known as BS Miljøteknik A/S. Thiscompany was for some time in foreign hands, but was in1992 brought back home by Krüger A/S, which carried onthe business under the name of Krüger Waste Systems. In1998 FLS miljø bought the activities, but sold it again in2002 to Babcock & Wilcox Vølund ApS.

B&S W grate

Albertslund district heating station. Architects: Friis & Moltke A/S.The building previously housed an incineration plant, too. This partof the building is now used as a regional music and culture centrecalled ‘Forbrændingen’ (The Incineration Plant).

Aarhus Nord incineration plant, 1978. Architects: Friis & Moltke A/S.The plant was given its original name (Aarhus North) due to the plansalso to build a plant in the south end of the municipality. But instead,a third unit extended Aarhus Nord in 1992, and a new unit 4 will beready in 2005.

Vølund develops a new plantSo Vølund was up against fierce com-petition and was perhaps somewhatslow at acknowledging district heatingrather than waste treatment as the ticket to the market. In addition, Vø-lund’s rotary kilns were too expensivefor the relatively small plants that werein demand. Vølund therefore had todevelop a plant without the rotary kiln.

From 1964 to 1992 Vølund supplied alarge number of plants in Denmark,and on the Faroe Islands the companysupplied a plant in Leirvik.

In 1984 there was a total of 48 incine-ration plants treating municipal solidwaste in Denmark (see overleaf) aswell as the three plants on the FaroeIslands and in Greenland. The Danishplants incinerated a total of 1.55 mil-lion tonnes of waste in 1982.

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24

Sectional drawing of theincineration plant inFredericia, supplied by A/S E. Rasmussen. At this plant the flue gaswas cleaned in a cyclonebattery installed immedi-ately before the stack.

Nordforbrænding 1969.Architect: Finn Monies.

Haderslev:‘The incineration plant is located near the scenic inlet ofHaderslev. Therefore a great effort has been made to makethe building look good. Presently, there is only one unit witha capacity of 3.5 t/h, but allowance has been made for asecond unit. The unit consists of three inclined grates (dry-ing grate, combustion grate and burnout grate). The bottomash [slag] is used as filling material, while the flue gas is coo-led in a boiler and sent through cyclones to the stack. Thestabilising oil burner is located on one of the walls in the fur-nace, above the drying grate, but it is hardly ever used …Currently, the plant is in operation eight hours on Mondaysand Fridays and 14-16 hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays andThursdays … The initial investment was DKK 5.7 million[~EUR 760,000]. The plant is operated by two staff’.

Fredericia:‘This incineration plant consists of two identical units, eachwith a capacity of 2.3 t/h. A stoker moving in strokes everythree minutes conveys the waste through the furnace. At

one side of each furnace there is an oil burner … The planthad been out of operation for some time in the morning,which is why the combustion efficiency was poor during thevisit (pieces of paper passed through the furnace in anuncombusted form). In the summer, one unit is operated intwo shifts, while in the heating season both units are inoperation eight hours a day’.

Herning: ‘The plant had been established in the building freezeperiod [economic measure to counteract inflation]. It wastherefore necessary to install the plant in an old building,which had previously housed Herning gasworks. As this building did not allow room for a waste pit, a pit was estab-lished in an adjacent building, and a conveyor was theninstalled to fill the chute … This was not very rational andaesthetic, and it was even a labour-intensive solution as twoworkers were required to load sacks onto the conveyor. Theunit has a capacity of 3 t/h. This unit also has an oil burner,applied when the waste is particularly wet. During the visitthe temperature in the furnace was higher than 1000°C … Inthe period of 1 April 1966 to 31 March 1967 the plant was inoperation for 2550 hours with only 19 hours of outages’.

The report concludes‘At all three plants the calorific value of the waste is estima-ted at 1800-1900 kcal/kg [=7.5-8 MJ/kg], and as the effici-ency is around 60 per cent, approximately 1100 kcal/kg isrecovered. The plants are not equipped with any magneticiron separators. The major part of the iron contained in thewaste is annealed in the furnace to such an extent that iteasily disintegrates at the landfill’.

A visit to three incineration plants of the 60s

Below: The incineration plant in Leirvik, located in majestic surroundings.

Vølund’s step grate at a small plant. The furnace and boiler are partly inter-connected.

In 1967 as a young engineer, Søren Dalager,employed by A/S Dansk Shell (the Danishbranch of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group), visitedthree quite new incineration plants inHaderslev, Fredericia and Herning suppliedby A/S Vølund, A/S E. Rasmussen and Bruun& Sørensen A/S, respectively. The followingare extracts from his report from the visits:


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26

Incineration plants inDenmark in 1984

Amagerforbrænding.Architect: Jørgen Maglebye.

As in other parts of the country the lackof landfill capacity was a pressing pro-blem in Greater Copenhagen. Withoutany luck, three municipalities appliedfor connection to Frederiksberg inciner-ation plant in 1960, and another mu-nicipality investigated sites for the es-tablishment of a new plant. When themunicipality of Copenhagen also be-gan to take an interest in the matter, itbecame clear to everybody that theyhad to think big.

To make a long story short, the twopartnerships were eventually estab-lished in 1965, each with the primarypurpose of establishing an incinerationplant.

The Municipality of Copenhagen was apartner to both companies and laterbecame a waste supplier for them, too.

It soon became clear that Vølundwould supply the process equipmentfor the two plants, while Rambøll &Hannemann (see separate box) wouldact as consulting engineers. In terms ofprocess equipment the two plants wereinitially identical. They both consistedof three units with rotary kilns, eachwith a capacity of 12 t/h. However, thetwo companies chose different archi-tects. As a result, the plants look verydifferent.

Amagerforbrænding was connected tothe district heating network of Copen-hagen Energy, but could originally onlysell the heat generated in the winter.Today, all of the heat produced at theplant is sold to the MetropolitanCopenhagen Heating TransmissionCompany – known as CTR.

Initially, only the birds profited from theproduction of heat at Vestforbrænding,but in 1972 the company landed a bigcontract for the supply of heat toHerlev Hospital. Furthermore, a districtheating network supplying heat tomore than 60,000 inhabitants was es-tablished in two adjacent municipal-ities. All surplus heat is today sold toCTR and the heating transmission com-pany in the western suburban area ofCopenhagen called VEKS.

The flue gases were cleaned in electro-static precipitators before they wereemitted through the stack, which is 150 m tall at both plants. In 1977,Vestforbrænding was extended by unit4, which has a capacity of 14 t/h, but isotherwise similar to units 1-3. Whenenvironmental regulations in 1986required an upgrading of the flue gastreatment systems, the two plants wereexpected to choose the same solution:semi-dry flue gas treatment. But in1989 Vestforbrænding chose a wet sys-tem instead. As the first plant inDenmark, Amagerforbrænding en-gaged in combined heat and power

production, initially in a new unit 4 andlater by upgrading units 1-3, whereasVestforbrænding did not become acombined heat and power plant untilunit 5 was commissioned in 1998.Vølund also supplied this unit, but thistime without the rotary kiln. The plantwas the first plant in Denmark to have aDeNOX process: SNCR and a limestonescrubber for the removal of SO2.Currently, yet another combined heatand power producing unit – unit 6 – isunder construction at Vestforbrænding.

The two plants have a standing co-operation in many fields. They have, forinstance, joint ownership of the landfillof AV Miljø where two different types offlue gas cleaning residues have beenlandfilled for a period of time: fly ash +hydroxide sludge from Vestforbræn-ding and the residues from the semi-dry flue gas treatment system atAmagerforbrænding.

In 1975 the Municipality of Frederiks-berg acknowledged that the time hadcome to close down the old incinera-tion plant from 1934, and the Munici-pality became a partner of I/S Amager-forbrænding.

Vestforbrænding’s partnership hasbeen extended several times and todayincludes 29 municipalities.

The first inter-municipal plantsThe plant in Hørsholm north of Copen-hagen was Denmark’s first inter-muni-cipal incineration plant. In January1965 a partnership was formed betweenfive municipal and parish councils toestablish and operate Hørsholm Incin-eration Plant and District HeatingStation. In the 70s the name waschanged to I/S Nordforbrænding (I/S =Interessentskab = Partnership).

In July 1965 I/S Amagerforbrændingand I/S Vestforbrænding were founded(see separate box), and the three firstinter-municipal waste managementcompanies had now been created. Thethree companies copied the organisationthat had already been applied in utilitycompanies. Since then, this organisationhas successfully been applied by a num-ber of other inter-municipal wastemanagement companies in Denmark.

Disposal of bottom ashWith the commissioning of the two largeCopenhagen plants of Amagerforbræn-ding and Vestforbrænding the Danishincineration capacity almost doubled.This, however, also entailed a corres-ponding increase in the amount of bot-tom ash generated. On the issue of bot-tom ash management, see separate box.

Amagerforbrændingand Vestforbrænding

Vestforbrænding seen from the ground and from the air.Architects: Poul Kjærgaard (buildings); Ole Nørgaard (park).

Previously the disposal of waste itselfwas the problem, but now the bottomash had become the problem. ‘WhenVestforbrænding was commissioned, ithad not yet been decided what to dowith the 60,000 tonnes of bottom ashgenerated at the plant annually … Aconvenient intermediary solution wasto create decoratively planted embank-ments from bottom ash … blocking theview from the adjacent recreationalareas to the giant incineration plant.However, one day the embankmentswere finished, and then the hugeamounts of bottom ash had to be takenelsewhere’. Initially the bottom ash wasdisposed of in a nearby forest, later onit was landfilled at AV Miljø.

Generally, the bottom ash residue fromwaste incineration had become awaste problem that required a solutioninvolving recycling – without posing athreat to the groundwater. A solutionwas provided in the Bottom Ash Orderof 1983, which made it possible on certain conditions to apply (screened)bottom ash in construction works.Whether the order was too liberal ornot, it was replaced by a new order in2000. Previously, the total content oflead, cadmium and mercury was infocus, but now the leaching propertiesof these and other substances havebecome the decisive factor in deter-mining the purposes for which the bot-tom ash can be applied.

THE POLLUTION BOARD AND THEENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT


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‘From the beginning of time man hasproduced waste, but in primitive so-cieties it was not a problem to get ridof it. This is attested by the kitchenmiddens generated by the people ofthe Stone Age’.

This is the introduction of Vestfor-brænding’s 25th anniversary book from1995, which contains vivid descriptionsof the waste situation in times past.After a cholera epidemic in Denmark inthe 1850s it was clear that waste couldnot just be disposed of in the streets,but had to be collected and landfilled.

Although this method of treatmentremoved the waste from the streets, itonly shifted the problem from oneplace to another. The residual amountof waste continued to be 1000 kg pertonne of waste. As previously mentio-ned, this caused problems to Frede-riksberg 100 years ago and to Gentofteand Aarhus in the 30s, which is whythese municipalities started to incine-rate the waste. If the Second WorldWar had not broken out, this develop-ment would have continued, but in-stead it was postponed for a period ofapproximately 25 years.

Incineration reduces the volume ofwaste by 90 per cent and the weight by80 per cent, but the waste does notdisappear altogether. There is still aresidue of 200 kg per tonne of waste inthe form of bottom ash. The residuewas originally taken to filling sites – aterm that is no longer found in Danishenvironmental law. From 1974 onwardswaste, including bottom ash, could nolonger be disposed of at such sites, buthad to be taken to ‘sanitary landfills’ –or recycled.

Bottom ashmanagement

The consulting engineering companyof Rambøll & Hannemann (R&H) wasfounded in 1945 by Professor DEngBørge Johannes Rambøll (born 1911)and Professor DEng Johan GeorgHannemann (1907-1980).

Originally, Rambøll & Hannemann wasfirst and foremost a civil engineeringcompany, but gradually its activitieshave extended to include e.g. oil andgas, energy and environment, tele-communications, traffic planning,information technology and manage-ment.

As civil engineers the company wassoon assigned projects for incinerationplants, but it was not until the estab-lishment of Vestforbrænding in thelate 60s that the company’s consultingexpertise within the field of processequipment for incineration plants wasfounded. Since then, this activity hasdeveloped to such an extent thatRambøll has today assumed a leadingposition in Denmark and is a signifi-cant consultant in this field internatio-nally. Incineration has therefore beco-me a core activity in the company.

In 1992 the company merged with theconsulting engineering company of B.Højlund Rasmussen A/S founded byDEng Bent Højlund Rasmussen (1918-1987) in 1951.

Since 1995 the merged company hastraded under the name of Rambølland has developed into one ofDenmark’s largest consulting enginee-ring companies. In 2002 approximate-ly 20% of its turnover originated fromactivities abroad.

Part of the international turnover isgenerated by projects at waste incine-ration plants in, for instance, Oslo,Bergen and Trondheim in Norway;Malmö, Halmstad and Uppsala inSweden; Wasa in Finland; the Isle ofMan and Guernsey; Budapest inHungary; Moscow and Murmansk inRussia; Cairo in Egypt; Hong Kong andTaiwan.

After the acquisition in 2003 of theSwedish company of Scandiaconsult,founded in 1947, Rambøll has beco-me the largest consulting enginee-ring company in Scandinavia withmore than 4000 employees and 70offices worldwide.

RambøllDuring the 60s, people became moreand more environmentally aware.Maybe the Danish Academy of Tech-nical Sciences (ATV) was instrumentalin this development. By the end of the50s, ATV had a Fish OdourCommittee. In 1962 the Smoke Com-mittee was established, and in 1963 theIndustrial Wastewater Committee sawthe light of day. The latter developedinto VKI (Institute for the WaterEnvironment), which is today part ofDHI Water & Environment (DanishHydraulic Institute). At the grass rootslevel Danish Anglers’ Federation andNOAH (the Danish section of Friendsof the Earth International) were ex-amples of active environmentalists, whereas Greenpeace did not emergeuntil 1980.

The Liberal government in power at thetime had to do something and thereforeset up the Pollution Board in 1970. In amatter of just two years the board pro-duced 31 reports, including one on airpollution from waste incineration.

A very unorthodox step was the publi-cation of a pamphlet on waste incine-ration, in which the board recommen-ded a reduction of the emission of dust,HCl and SO2 to 150, 600 and 1500mg/Nm3, respectively. It was not wellreceived by all parties: ‘How can youregulate on the basis of a pamphlet?!’In its leading article, the periodicalpublished by the Society of DanishEngineers called it ‘emission of hotair’. However it served as a guidelineuntil 1986.

First Minister of the EnvironmentIn the autumn of 1971 the SocialDemocrats returned to power, andDenmark had its first Minister of theEnvironment or Minister of PollutionControl as he was called at the time.The new Minister immediately set outto prepare an up-to-date EnvironmentalProtection Act, and in April 1972 theDanish Environmental ProtectionAgency was established.

It took a long time to formulate the new Environmental Protection Act, which was not adopted by the Danish Parliament until June 1973 and entered into force on 1 October 1974.

Rambøll has been a consultant to the majority of incineration plants in Denmark as wellas a large number of plants abroad. One of the company’s international references is anew plant in the Isle of Man.

Automatic bottom ash container system at Nordforbrænding.

After fuel, as the last commodity, hadbeen taken off the post-war ration in1953, Denmark did not have any actu-al energy policy and even stoppedrecording statistical energy data after1968. The market forces ruled, and oilwas in demand to such a degree that 92per cent of Denmark’s energy con-sumption in 1973 was based on oil.

When the Arabian oil sheikhs inOctober 1973 suddenly cut back oilsupplies, it came as a shock to WesternEurope. In Denmark, the first step wasto call for oil savings immediately. Itwas now forbidden to drive a car onSundays, and all unnecessary con-sumption of power had to be avoided –also during Christmas sales in 1973.‘Now Denmark is put on the back burner’, read a slogan.

Promotion of district heating …A long-term energy policy had to bedeveloped, and in 1976 the DanishEnergy Agency was established. Atfirst the policy focused on reducingdependency on oil and increasing thesupply reliability. The power stationswere requested to reconvert to coalfiring, and large district heating net-works, including CTR and VEKS inthe metropolitan area, were estab-lished in order to ensure the greatestpossible exploitation of the surplusheat generated at the local power sta-tions.

The incineration plants also benefitedfrom the new energy policy as it be-came easier to sell district heating.When taxes on oil and later coal forheat supply purposes were introduced,the plants could raise their – untaxed –heat prices correspondingly.

… and natural gasIn early 1979 ‘The Islamic Republic ofIran’ was proclaimed. This entailed adecrease in the oil production and asteep rise in oil prices. The secondenergy crisis had set in.

In Denmark one of the outcomes ofthe crisis was that later on that year itwas decided to bring ashore naturalgas from the Danish part of the NorthSea and eventually also crude oil.Although Denmark in time becameself-sufficient in energy, the high levelof taxation remained. However, themarket for natural gas was a bit slug-gish, and the regional gas companiessank deeper and deeper into debt.Consequently, the energy policy had tobe adjusted several times, for instanceby a combined heat and power schemein 1986 and an action plan calledEnergy 2000 in 1990.


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Kommunekemi A/S was founded on18 November 1971. It was decided toestablish the company on a site ad-jacent to a tar works (today tradingunder the name of TARCO) in thehope of being able to exploit the tarworks’ already existing process equip-ment, e.g. for the processing of wasteoil to fuel oil. However, waste productsthat could not be handled by the tarworks started flocking at the gate ofKommunekemi. Consequently, Kom-munekemi had to establish its owntreatment facilities.

The history of Kommunekemi’s es-tablishment and extension is welldocumented in its 20th and 25th anni-versary books, but in brief the com-pany has had four incineration units:

• Unit I: supplied by vonRoll,Switzerland, in 1975.

• Unit II: special unit for the incinera-tion of halogenous waste, suppliedby Celloco AB, Sweden, in 1974.This unit was not a success and was

closed down after the establishmentof Unit III.

• Unit III: supplied by Widmer + Ernst,Switzerland, in 1982. This unit wasequipped with a semi-dry flue gastreatment system from A/S NiroAtomizer and was therefore the firstplant in Denmark with treatmentfacilities for acidic gases (HCl, HFand SO2). In 1986 the unit was equipped with a turbine/generator,making Kommunekemi a combinedheat and power plant.

• Unit IV: supplied by A/S Vølund in1989. The unit was from the outset acombined heat and power-pro-ducing unit.

In 1994 an EU Directive on theIncineration of Hazardous Waste wasadopted. Kommunekemi thereforehad to upgrade the flue gas treat-ment systems of Units III and IV. Newwet systems supplied by FLS miljødid this.


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Kommunekemi- the first treatment plant forhazardous waste in Denmark

Kommunekemi and Tarco in Nyborg, situated close to the bridge across the Great Belt.

It took some time to formulate the newEnvironmental Protection Act, whichwas not adopted until June 1973 andentered into force on 1 October 1974.Quick results were therefore called for,so 1972 saw the adoption of, forinstance, the Act on the Disposal of Oiland Chemical Waste, which authorisedthe Minister to stipulate more detailedrules on the collection and treatment ofthese types of waste. The backgroundwas a wish set forth by the municipali-ties to establish Kommunekemi A/S(see separate box).

The approval schemeAn important part of the Environmen-tal Protection Act was Part V: HeavilyPolluting Enterprises. According tosection 35 such enterprises ‘shall notbe established or commenced withoutprior approval’. This rule also appliedto extensions of existing enterprisessubject to the stipulations laid down inPart V.

Consequently, as from 1 October 1974all new incineration units had to havean environmental approval. The plantsthat were already in operation wereassumed to already have an approval incompliance with previous legislation.According to Section 36, the Ministercould require certain existing enterpri-ses to submit an application for anenvironmental approval. Section 44enabled the authorities to order theadoption of anti-pollution measures.

However, the approval provided legalprotection against such orders. Thelegal protection period was initiallyunlimited, but an amendment to the actin 1986 limited the period to eight yearsin general, for waste incineration plants– as from 1988 – to just four years.

THE ENERGY CRISES OF 1973 AND 1979

District heating transmission in Greater Copenhagen. Note the four waste incinerationplants: Vestforbrænding, Amagerforbrænding, KARA and VEGA and the sludge incine-ration plant at the wastewater treatment plant of Lynetten. Source: VEKS

Due to the energy crisis it was forbidden todrive a car on Sundays in the period from25 November 1973 to 10 February 1974.One was however allowed to drive onChristmas Day, Boxing Day and New YearsDay as these non-working days were onweekdays. Motorists came to terms withthe situation, while pedestrians and cyclistsenjoyed the peace and quiet that had suddenly descended on the country. Photo: Polfoto

Combined heat and power in Greater Copenhagen

Auxiliary burnersAs mentioned elsewhere the logicalthing to do was to equip the plantsestablished in the 60s with auxiliaryburners, but as the calorific value incre-ased, they became more and moresuperfluous. Yet Guideline no. 3/1986made the requirement that new plantsshould be equipped with at least threeauxiliary burners. In compliance withthis requirement VEGA – a plant in thesuburbs of Copenhagen – was equip-ped with such burners. Since theirapplication was problematic, and theywere soon dismantled with the super-vising authorities’ blessing.

The Danish Environmental ProtectionAgency’s dioxin study from 1989 madethe recommendation that the require-ment should be reassessed, and inGuideline no. 2/1993 the requirementwas taken out. In the meantime thetwo (old) EU directives from 1989 hadbecome effective. The directives stipu-lated the use of auxiliary burners, butthe Danish Environmental ProtectionAgency managed to find a ‘shrewd’wording requiring that only green-fieldplants should install auxiliary burners.

In 1994 the European Commissionpublished its first draft of the incinera-tion directive. This directive alsorequired auxiliary burners, but thanksto determined lobbying, also byDanish organisations, the final versionof the directive – and hence the Danishorder – contains an exemption clause.

It was not until the issue of Order no.162 of 11 March 2003 (transposingEU Directive 2000/76/EC) thatDenmark introduced an emissionlimit value for dioxin from wasteincineration plants. This is an oddcontradiction with the fact that dioxinhad been on everyone’s lips since thebeginning of the 80s whenever theconversation turned to waste incine-ration.

The debate initially lead to the firstdioxin study carried out by the DanishEnvironmental Protection Agency in1984. The study took place at theplant in Varde, and on this basis thetotal Danish emission from wasteincineration was estimated at 500g/year, calculated as Toxic Equi-valents (TEQ).

Requirement for environmental approvalEven though this estimate was subjectto considerable uncertainty, theDanish Environmental ProtectionAgency found that the sector had to beupgraded, so in September 1985 a neworder was issued. Under the provisionsof section 36 of the EnvironmentalProtection Act, the order stipulatedthat all existing, not yet environmen-tally approved waste incinerationplants should submit an application foran approval by the end of 1986. Foradministrative purposes the DanishEnvironmental Protection Agencyissued a guideline (no. 3/1986) on the

limitation of pollution from wasteincineration plants.

The guideline refrained from settingan emission limit for dioxin, but sug-gested such a limit to be set in 1991.However, it never materialised. In themeantime the Danish EnvironmentalProtection Agency had carried out yetanother – this time very comprehen-sive – dioxin study, which was repor-ted in 1989. The conclusion was thatthe dioxin emission from waste incine-ration plants was in the order of 34g/year TEQ, i.e. far less than reportedfrom the 1984 study.

EU directivesFurthermore, the EU had in 1989 issu-ed two directives on air pollution frommunicipal waste incineration plants.These were transposed in Denmark byan order in early 1991. In practice itwas therefore the order that deter-mined the third phase in the upgradingof the existing plants, cf. box on theleft-hand side.

The most debated requirement in theorder was the one requiring auxiliaryburners (see separate box).

Guideline no. 3/1986 was replaced byGuideline no. 2/1993 on the limita-tion of pollution from incinerationplants.

The three phases for compliance forcedsome of the existing plants to immedi-

ately close down, while others mana-ged to survive phases 1 and 2 and thenclosed down.

Incineration becomes environmentally acceptedThe other existing plants took on thechallenge of complying with the newrequirements. The standard significant-ly improved, and incineration becamegenerally accepted as an environmen-

tally friendly waste treatment method.Although a few new plants were estab-lished, the total number of plants inDenmark decreased to approximately30.

As a consequence of the new emissionlimit values for dust and HCl etc. theflue gas treatment also had to beupgraded. The upgrading led to theproduction of new residues at the in-cineration plants.


33


32

THE DIOXIN DEBATE

Dioxin molecule. Source: PVC Information Council, Denmark.

This photo taken around 1970 shows an incineration plant in Skagen (The Skaw) on themost northern tip of Jutland. The plant did not recover the energy produced and was the-refore located in a remote area. As can be seen, the ‘afterburning zone’ was located on topof the stack. Plants of this type were targeted by Guideline no. 3/1986 issued by the DanishEnvironmental Protection Agency. However, the Municipality of Skagen prevented anyintervention as in 1979 it replaced the plant shown by a new, still existing, district heatingproducing incineration plant supplied by B&S.

Interior of Nordforbrænding, 1969. In the front there are two multi-cyclone systems for thetreatment of flue gases. In the mid-70s, electrostatic precipitators replaced the multi-cyclo-nes, and in 1987 completely new, dry flue gas treatment systems with lime reactors and baghouse filters were installed.

Guideline no. 3/1986

The requirements for new plantsincluded: The flue gas shall have a 2-second retention time at tempera-tures higher than 875°C. In order tomeet this requirement the plantsshall be equipped with a minimum ofthree auxiliary burners. The Guideline established limit valu-es for the emission of CO, dust, HCl,HF, SO2, Pb, Cd and Hg to the airand as far as the latter three wereconcerned also to water. In addition,the requirements for instrumen-tation, monitoring and reportingbecame more stringent. The goalswere the same for the existingplants, but they should be achievedin three phases:

1. As from 1 January 1988:Not more than one start-up a week,unless auxiliary burners have beeninstalled. Continuous recording of,for example, the afterburning tem-perature, excess air and CO. ‘If byJune 1988 the plant cannot complywith a CO concentration … of max.200 mg/Nm3 as the daily averagevalue, it has to be closed down orupgraded by June 1989’.

2. As from 1 June 1989:‘The CO content of the flue gas …may not exceed 200 mg/Nm3 as thedaily average value, 750 mg/Nm3 asthe 10-minute average value and1000 mg/Nm3 as the one-minuteaverage value’.

3. As from 1 June 1991:The plants shall comply with thesame requirements as those madefor new plants.

Start-up and auxiliary burner.

No information is available on the fluegas treatment at Denmark’s first incine-ration plant in Frederiksberg, but thethree plants from the 30s were equip-ped with a kind of deflecting separa-tors for the removal of the fly ash. Theplants established in the 60s were typi-cally equipped with cyclone batteriesor multi-cyclones, while the plants fromthe 70s, starting with Amagerforbræn-ding and Vestforbrænding, had elec-trostatic precipitators.

The relatively small plants that werewithout energy recovery, however, didnot have any kind of flue gas treat-ment. This was one of the primaryreasons why they were closed down inthe 70s or 80s.

Removal of HCl was not required untilthe issue of the above-mentionedGuideline no. 3/1986. Initially theplants chose dry (typically the formerFläkt’s Dry Absorption System, DAS) orsemi-dry (typically FLS miljø’s GSA pro-cess) solutions in which HCl reacts withhydrated lime added in dry or in anaqueous suspension. The reaction pro-ducts are collected together with thefly ash in a subsequent bag house filter.An environmental off-spin of these pro-cesses is that SO2 is also separated to alevel far below the emission limit valuesstipulated in Guideline no. 3/1986 andthe two EU directives of 1989. A disad-vantage, however, is the production ofquite a large quantity of hygroscopicand alkaline solid residues that have tobe disposed of. Niro Atomizer, whichhad supplied a plant for Kommune-kemi (see separate box) did not pursuethis new development in time as in theautumn of 1985 the company sold itsrights to its spray absorption system toFläkt, which then – together withVølund – supplied four systems toAmagerforbrænding.

Around 1990 wet treatment methodsstarted attracting attention. In suchsystems the fly ash is first separated inan electrostatic precipitator and thenthe flue gas is washed with water inorder to separate HCl. Today, someDanish plants have these two stepsonly, whereas others have installed anadditional scrubber for the removal ofSO2 resulting in a gypsum residue.Fläkt (today Alstom), FLS miljø (todayF.L. Smidth Airtech), and GötaverkenMiljö have supplied such plants. Thewater applied for HCl separation isneutralised and cleaned of heavymetals and subsequently discharged tothe municipal sewer system or in a fewcases directly to the recipient. Hence,

the HCl separated in a wet system isdischarged in the form of a saline solu-tion. Consequently, the wet processesresult in a somewhat smaller amount ofsolid residues per tonne of waste in-cinerated than the dry/semi-dry pro-cesses.

In 1994 the European Commissionissued its first draft of what eventuallybecame Directive 2000/76/EC of 4December 2000 on the incineration ofwaste. This directive stipulates morestringent emission limit values for thesubstances that were already subject tolimit values and new limit values fore.g. dioxin and NOX. As a consequen-ce of the conversion to combined heatand power production (see pp. 34-35)quite a large number of plants werecontracted after 1994 and these wereall immediately designed to complywith the dioxin requirement. Thenewest plants comply with the NOX

requirements too. The dioxin treat-ment consists in the addition of activa-ted carbon or Herdofen coke in a baghouse filter or a special scrubber desig-ned by the French company of LAB.Today, the very limited number ofplants that reduce NOX emissions haveall chosen the SNCR process.

The EU directive was transposed intoDanish legislation by Order no. 162 of11 March 2003 on plants incineratingwaste issued by the Danish Ministry ofthe Environment. In accordance withthe Order, all existing plants have tocomply with the more stringent re-quirements by the end of 2004 (dioxin)and 2005 (the other requirements, alt-hough with certain exceptions),respectively.

On the issue of residues from flue gastreatment, see separate box.

Flue gas treatment at Danish incineration plants


35


34

As mentioned elsewhere even theplants from the 30s were equippedwith some kind of fly ash collector.Initially, the fly ash was mixed with thebottom ash, but in accordance withGuideline no. 3/1986 issued by theDanish Environmental ProtectionAgency this was forbidden. Fly ashbecame a separate residue generatedin quantities of approximately 20 kgper tonne of waste incinerated.

At the same time the Guidelinerequired cleaning of the flue gas of,for instance, HCl and SO2. If this treat-ment is effected by applying the dryor semi-dry systems (see separate boxon flue gas treatment), a residue con-sisting of fly ash and solid reactionproducts (calcium chloride from theseparation of HCl and calcium sulphi-te/sulphate from the SO2 removal) aswell as surplus lime is produced. Thetotal amount is approximately 30 kgper tonne of waste.

In the wet treatment system the fly ashis removed separately, HCl is transfer-red to the scrubber water, and duringneutralisation hydroxide sludge is for-med, which is dewatered or appliedfor moistening the fly ash. If SO2 isremoved, it is usually transformed intogypsum. A total of 20-25 kg of solidresidues is generated per tonne ofwaste, i.e. a smaller amount than inthe dry/semi-dry system.

As mentioned elsewhere Amagerfor-brænding and Vestforbrænding dis-posed of a semi-dry residue and amixture of ash and sludge, respective-ly, at the sanitary landfill of AV Miljø.This took place under extremely well-controlled conditions, making it possi-ble to observe the formation of lea-chate. As it turned out, considerable

amounts of chloride and heavy metalsleached from both types of waste.Therefore landfilling of such residues inDenmark has been banned. Insteadthe residues are exported as a fillingmaterial for underground German saltmines or to the island of Langøya in theOslo Fiord in Norway where they areused to neutralise acidic waste. Theseapplications imply a certain degree ofrecovery.

Export of waste is subject to the EU’sregulation on shipments of waste.One of its cornerstones is the prin-

ciple of proximity, i.e. that waste shallbe disposed of as close to its origin aspossible. If this is not possible, thenthe waste can be exported subject topermission by the environmental authorities of the recipient country.Export of residues from flue gas treat-ment is handled by e.g. DanskRestproduktHåndtering, DRH (DanishResidue Handling).

Both DRH, DHI (Danish HydraulicInstitute) and Vølund have developedmethods for treating residues, but a full-scale plant has yet to be established.

Residues from flue gas treatment

Sanitary landfill of AV Miljø, which is jointly owned and operated by Amagerforbrænding and Vestforbrænding.

Electrostatic precipitator, Vestforbrænding

Limestone scrubber, Vestforbrænding

Dioxin filter, Vestforbrænding

The 1986 combined heat and powerscheme must be considered a success.In its plan of action called Energy 2000the Danish Energy Agency therefore setthe stage for the ‘encouragement ofcogeneration of heat and power … theexpansion should primarily be linked todistrict heating systems and other areasof consumption capable of using sur-plus heat’. The objective was to reducepower production at the large sea watercooled power plants. The Ministry ofthe Environment followed up on thisplan by announcing its intention to banthe landfilling of incinerable waste.

As a consequence, in 1992-94, a num-ber of municipalities with districtheating plants, including incinerationplants above a certain minimum capa-city, received a so-called stipulatoryletter from the Danish Energy Agency.In brief, the letter required the conver-sion from district heating productionto combined heat and power produc-tion.

This policy led to the establishment of afurther five new green-field plants,seven new units and the upgrading of acouple of existing plants.

37


36

The energy producing incinerationplants commissioned in the period of1963-89 all produced heat only. In1986, the Danish Parliament arrived atan energy policy compromise, whichrequired that a number of small-scalecombined heat and power plants basedon domestic fuel and with a total capa-city of 450 MW should be established.This was meant as a demonstrationprogramme.

A report published by Dakofa (theDanish Waste Management Associ-ation) in 1988 noted that ‘the es-tablishment of combined heat andpower plants in major urban communi-ties, where the majority of the wasteincineration capacity is also concen-trated, makes it interesting to considerthe option of including waste incinera-tion plants as combined heat andpower base load units’.

3. FROM DISTRICT HEATING

TO COMBINED

HEAT AND POWER

1990-2003CHP AGAIN

CHP plant in Horsens in Jutland, established in 1991.Architects: Boje Lundgaard and Lene Tranberg.

ENERGY 2000

This challenge was taken up in differentways. In Jutland some of the powersupply companies chose to activelyengage themselves in waste incinera-tion by establishing new combinedheat and power plants.

East of the Great Belt the already exis-ting incineration plants demonstratedthe combined heat and power principleby establishing new CHP producingunits e.g. at Amagerforbrænding,which established unit 4 in 1990 andlater converted units 1-3 too.

I/S KARA in the municipality of Roskilde: New combined heat and power plant commissioned in 1999. Consultant: Rambøll. Architect: Tage Nielsens Tegnestue.

3. FROM DISTRICT HEATING TO COMBINED HEAT AND POWER


39

Following the commissioning ofDenmark’s latest incineration plant inEsbjerg on the western coast ofJutland, Denmark now has 32 plantsand four new units are under construc-tion.

Of the approximately 30 combinedheat and power producing units pre-sently existing in Denmark Vølund hassupplied a little more than half, andBS/Krüger (now Vølund) has suppliedapproximately one third. But in recentyears also Swiss ABB W+E (today partof the German company of Martin) andGerman Steinmüller/Babcock BorsigPower Environment (now FisiaBabcock Environment) have enteredthe Danish market.

The combined heat and power plantsrequired a new type of boiler: thesteam boiler. Vølund was capable ofsupplying such boilers itself, whereasB&S joined forces with AalborgIndustries and later on, when boilerswith a ho-rizontal convection passwere in demand, with BWE. The steamparameters are typically 40 bar, 400°C.The steam turbines were supplied byABB (today Siemens), British W.H.Allen (out of business) and GermanB+V Industrietechnik.

Increased demand for consultancyThe complexity of the CHP plantsrequired consultants to assist the plantowners in specifying, tendering, procu-ring, erecting and commissioning theplants. In addition, the environmentalregulatory framework became morediverse, again calling for qualified con-sultants. Rambøll decided to activelyengage itself in this line of business andsoon became the leading consultant.


I/S FASAN's incineration plant in Næstved. Architects: Gottlieb & Paludan, Arkitekter MAA. In the foreground Næstved CHP Plant can be seen. The plant was recently acquired by FASAN. Conveyors and feeding of straw at Måbjergværket.

Måbjergværket in Holstebro in western Jutland. Architect: Torsten Riis Andersen.The plant does not only incinerate waste, but also straw. The steam produced is superheated in natural gas fired superheaters before it is appliedfor combined heat and power production.

TAXES AND SUBSIDIES

In order to promote recycling, whichranks higher in the waste hierarchy,incineration and landfilling of wasteare taxed in Denmark.

In 1987 an – although modest – tax ofDKK 40 (~EUR 5.5) per tonne ofwaste incinerated or landfilled wasintroduced. Later on this tax graduallyincreased to DKK 330 (~EUR 44) andDKK 375 (~EUR 50) per tonne,respectively.

Energy 2000 focused on the increasingemission of CO2 and the ensuing riskof a greenhouse effect, so a number ofthe measures in the plan of actionaimed at limiting the CO2 emissionfrom the energy sector. In order toenhance this objective a CO2 tax oncoal, oil and power was introduced in1992/93. As an almost CO2 neutralfuel, waste was exempt from the tax.

When, on the other hand, the govern-ment wanted to support the conversionfrom district heating to combined heat

and power production, a subsidy ofDKK 0.10 (~EUR 0.015) pr kWh forpower produced on the basis of re-newable energy sources, biomass andnatural gas was introduced in 1992. In1997 this subsidy was reduced to DKK0.07 (~EUR 0.01) pr kWh, which isstill the case today. At the same timethe incineration plants got prioritisedaccess to the power supply networkpursuant to the law on power supply.Hence the power produced must bereceived by the network in accordancewith a differentiated tariff structure inwhich the tariff depends on whetherthe electricity is produced in periods ofpeak, high or low consumption.

However, in 2003 the Danish EnergyAgency presented its plans to libera-lise the energy market.

In 1995 a new tax on SO2 emissionswas introduced. It also included wasteincineration, and the latest initiative isa tax on ‘waste’ heat (i.e. heat produ-ced from the incineration of waste).

Waste pit and grab at Vestforbrænding

38

THE PLANTS OF TODAY


41


40

Sønderborg combinedheat and power plant.

The plant consists of a 9t/h waste incinerationunit and a combinedcycle gas turbine.

The waste incinerationplant is located in thelong rounded building,while the gas and steamturbines are located in a(partly hidden) buildingbehind the incinerationplant. The cylindricaltank on the right is theheat accumulator for the plant.

Architects: Friis & Moltke A/S.

Great buildings call for great architectureThe conversion to combined heat andpower producing incineration plantsrequired quite large buildings. In a flatcountry like Denmark they becomerelatively visible to the surroundings.Luckily, the sector has succeeded inengaging some of the leading architectsof the country for the structural designof the plants, cf. text below photos.

Another essential development is theincreasingly extensive and sophisti-cated automation of the plants, whichhas made it possible to operate theplants with a very limited staff.

Most of the plants are purely wasteincineration plants, however somehave separate oil or gas fired peak loadboilers. A few plants do not have theirown steam turbines, but sell the steamto adjacent decentral combined heatand power plants based on straw ornatural gas.

Competition from natural gasUntil 1993 natural gas, which is also adomestic fuel, was a competitor to

waste. The municipality of Elsinorecould have built a new incinerationplant to replace the old one, but insteadended up establishing a natural gasfired combined heat and power plantand introduced source separation of thewaste at the same time. The greenwaste was treated at a biogas plant(Nordsjællands Biogasanlæg) in Elsi-nore, while the residual waste was incinerated at a plant outside the muni-cipality. However, the biogas plant wasnot a success and was closed down in1996.

In some cases a compromise had to befound. One plant therefore has naturalgas fired superheaters in order to maximise power production, whileanother has tried out reburning, i.e.NOX reduction by injection of naturalgas. The price of natural gas is toohigh for these ideas to have spread toother plants. Other plants have in-stalled a gas turbine or a gas engine inwhich the surplus heat is transformedinto steam, which is led to a jointsteam turbine for the waste and gasparts of the plant.

The gas turbines and gas engines are

primarily in operation in periodswhen the power consumption is high.Then so much heat is produced thatpart of it is stored in a heat accumu-lator.

Incinerable waste must be incineratedNot until the political ‘biomass agree-ment’ in 1993 was it officially esta-blished ‘that the application of wastefor combined heat and power produc-tion must continue to take precedenceover other kinds of fuel’. The agree-ment provided the clarity and certain-ty that were required to continue theextension of combined heat andpower production, and as from 1January 1997, as the first country inthe world, Denmark introduced a banon the landfilling of incinerablewaste. The adoption of the EU landfilldirective in 1999 was therefore not aproblem for Denmark – at least notthe part of the directive that makes therequirement that waste disposed of atlandfills has to undergo prior treat-ment (at for instance incinerationplants).

In 2002 the Danish incineration plantstreated approximately 2.9 million ton-nes of waste, corresponding to around600 kg per capita. Hence, Denmark iscompeting with Switzerland andJapan for being the country in theworld that incinerates the most wasteper capita.

Thanks to the massive political sup-port to district heating the Danishincineration plants are able to sell theentire amount of heat they producealmost all year round. The overallsystem is therefore characterised by avery high degree of energy efficiency.The plants have become high-tech-nology energy works equipped withthe best available technique.

Control and monitoring of the incinerationplants have naturally followed the techno-logical development in general.

Top:Control panel at Frederiksberg incineration plant, 1934.

Bottom:Control room at Vestforbrænding today.

L90 - waste incineration plant in Esbjerg.Architects: Friis & Moltke.

What is the best available technique for thermal treatment of waste?

Waste is thermally treated either by adding sufficientamounts of air, whereby the waste is simply combustedresulting in completely burned out bottom ash and fluegas, or by maintaining an air deficiency, whereby the wasteis pyrolised or gasified. In the latter case, the result is a part-ly burned gas, which can be sent on to a separate incinera-tion plant, e.g. a gas engine or, preferably, a gas turbine forenergy production. Potentially, the quantity of power pro-duced per tonne of waste would be larger than whenapplying the direct incineration method. However, depen-ding on the circumstances, the gas is to some extent pollu-ted by tar and heavy metals. It therefore has to be washedprior to incineration – whereby the energy applied in thepyrolysis/gasification process is cooled away. ‘On the otherhand, it is possible to extract and exploit the heavy metals,and – if fossil energy and/or clean oxygen are added – abetter annealed and less leachable bottom ash is obtained’is the counterargument. The best known of these alterna-tive processes is the Thermoselect process, which must,however, still be considered to be at a development stage.

What is the best available technique for incineration of waste?

Incineration of waste is usually effected by mass burn in-cineration, i.e. by incinerating the waste as it is, except forthe shredding of very large items. A few plants incineratethe waste on a fluidised bed, whereby a relatively largergross power production can allegedly be achieved. On theother hand, this technique requires very extensive, powerconsuming shredding of the waste, and the amount of flyash produced is larger.

Consequently, it is the authors’ opinion that only massburn incineration on a grate or a combination of a grateand a rotary kiln can today be considered BAT, providedthat CFD calculations are used in the design process (CFD= computerised fluid dynamics).

What is the best available technique for fluegas treatment in waste incineration plants?

When having to answer this question a number of issuesthat are difficult to rank in order of importance presentthemselves. On a general level it should be consideredwhether the treatment should be a wet system, whichgenerates wastewater, or a dry system in which wastewateris avoided, but a larger amount of more leachable residuesis generated. If the wet system is chosen, should SO2 thenbe removed by lime (CaCO3) or sodium hydroxide (NaOH)?In the former case the result is an emission of CO2, whichcorresponds to the removed emission of SO2, whereas inthe latter case the emission of CO2 from the incinerationplant is avoided. But if the power consumption and the CO2

emission that are involved in the production of NaOH aretaken into account, the application of lime is more advan-tageous.

Another example is: Should NOX be catalytically removed(SCR) at the expense of a larger consumption of steam atthe plant in order to prevent the unavoidable ammonia pollution of wastewater or residues involved in the non-catalytical reduction (SNCR)?

The technical working group on waste incineration shouldinclude considerations like these in its BREF.

Best available technique

4. THE FUTURE

43

With the adoption of the so-calledIPPC directive, the term best avail-able technique, BAT, was introducedinto the European legislation. Thedirective contains specific definitionsof the term, including a requirementthat it must be possible to apply the

technique under economically andtechnically viable conditions as wellas an annex listing 12 considerationsto be taken into account when deter-mining BAT. The twelfth and last ofthese considerations is to acknow-ledge the BAT Reference Documents

(BREFs) published by the Commis-sion.

What is the best available techniquefor treatment of waste? The directivedoes not answer this question. Instead,in another annex, it lists a number ofindustrial activities covered by thedirective, including installations forthe incineration of municipal wastewith a capacity exceeding 3 tonnes perhour.

Hence, the question does not ariseuntil the decision to thermally treat thewaste has been made. Accordingly, aspecial technical working group hasbeen set up for the purpose of pre-paring a BREF on waste incineration.In May 2003 the working grouppublished its first draft and in March2004 its second.

Although much work still has to bemade on the BREF, it is fair to concludethat BAT differs from project to project.


4. THE FUTURE

AFTER 2003BEST AVAILABLE TECHNIQUE (BAT)

I/S Vestforbrænding seen from the West.Architect: Poul Kjærgaard A/S.

CFD plot for assessment of residence time in an afterburning chamber.

Residence time (s)

42

Plant Vestforbrænding REFA Svendborg Reno-NordUnit 5 Unit 3 CHP Plant Unit 4

4. THE FUTURE

45

The new unit at I/S Reno-Nord is verysimilar to the one in Svendborg.However, the removal of SO2 is effec-ted in a limestone scrubber, and dueto the fact that the district heatingwater is returned at a temperaturelower than the flue gas temperatureafter the scrubbers, it is possible toexploit this difference in temperaturefor further production of districtheating.

In this process such a large part of thewater vapour content of the flue gas iscondensed that the unit becomes self-sufficient in water for both the wetflue gas treatment and the cooling ofthe bottom ash.

In other words, the part of the wastethat consists of water is recycled.

This also entails an exploitation ofnearly 100% of the lower calorificvalue of the waste.

Table 2 contains a comparison of datafrom the four plants. If the data arecompared with those applying to theplants from the 30s, cf. table 1 onpage 14, it is first and foremost ap-parent that the steam production pertonne of waste has quadrupled. Partof this increase is naturally due to thefact that the calorific value of thewaste has significantly increased, buta reason that is just as important isthat the energy efficiency has beengiven pride of place.


44

Table 2. Data on four recently established combined heat and power producing waste incineration plants in Denmark

* RSV = Rambøll, SK energi, Vestforbrænding. ** in connection with the semi-dry flue gas treatment

I/S REFA, Nykøbing Falster.Architect: Mikael Klinge, Klinges Tegnestue.

Svendborg CHP Plant. Architects: Boje Lundgaard & Lene Tranberg.

Interiorof Svendborg CHP Plant.

BAT plantsIn conclusion, four recently establishedDanish plants are presented below: I/SVestforbrænding’s unit 5, I/S REFA’sunit 3, Svendborg CHP Plant and I/SReno-Nord’s unit 4. All of these plantscan be said to represent BAT; each intheir own way.

I/S Vestforbrænding already had thelargest unit in Denmark, 14 t/h, butwhen unit 5 was tendered, a capacityof as much as 26 t/h was selected. Atthe same time it was decided that theplant should fully comply with therequirements of the then draft versionof the EU directive on the incinerationof waste. The plant was therefore thefirst one in Denmark to apply a DeNOX

technique in the form of SNCR comp-lete with ammonia stripping in thewater treatment system. The plant wasalso the first one to have a limestonescrubber for the removal of SO2. Afterthe scrubber the flue gas is reheatedprior to being cleaned of dioxins in abag house filter.

For I/S REFA it was of the utmost

importance that the new unit 3 shouldbe established as close to the existingunits as possible. The waste receptionhall and the waste pit were extended,and the new unit was located aroundthe existing units so that it could applyan available third pipe in the existingstack. On account of the limited areaavailable - as well as the fact that thissolution would result in the same fluegas treatment residue as the one gene-rated by the two other units, whichcould then be handled in a new jointbigbag system for the three units - itwas chosen to install a semi-dry fluegas treatment system for the new unit.

Hence, at both plants the dioxins areseparated in baghouse filters, i.e. at aflue gas temperature of more than100°C, whereas Svendborg CHPPlant as the first plant in Scandinaviaintroduced the wet method for theseparation of dioxins. In this methodit is not necessary to reheat the fluegas, which enables the recovery of alarger part of the energy contained inthe waste.

Commissioning 1998 1999 1999 2005

Capacity 26 t/h 9 t/h 6 t/h 20 t/h

Consultant RSV* Rambøll Rambøll Rambøll

Grate Vølund Vølund Vølund BS W (Vølund)

Steam pressure 52 bar 40 bar 50 bar 50 bar

Steam temperature 380°C 400°C 400°C 425°C

Steam production 28.67 kg/s 9.7 kg/s 6.54 kg/s 22.12 kg/s

Steam production 4.0 kg/kg waste 3.9 kg/kg waste 3.9 kg/kg waste 4.0 kg/kg waste

Steam turbine Allen Allen ABB BV Industrietech.

Power production 17 MW 6.7 MW 4.5 MW 17.5 MW

Electrostatic FLS miljø no Rotemühle Alstomprecipitator

Flue gas recirculation yes no yes no

DeNOX process SNCR none to date none to date SNCR

Flue gas treatment wet semi-dry wet wetSupplier ABB FLS miljø LAB LAB

SO2 removal CaCO3 Ca(OH)2** NaOH CaCO3

Gypsum production yes not relevant no yesFlue gas condenser no no no yes

Dioxin filter baghouse filter baghouse filter** Scrubber ScrubberIncineration of yes not relevant yes yesspent adsorbent

Thermal efficiency 86.7% 86.9% 87.9% 98.0%

Electrical efficiency 19.6% 22.3% 22.5% 26.9%

4. THE FUTURE

47

Denmark has incinerated waste for aperiod of 100 years. Although initiallythe purpose was to reduce the quantityof waste that had to be landfilled, theheat produced in the process has al-ways – except at a few minor plants inthe period of 1970-87 – been exploitedfor power and/or heat production.

As the major part of the waste is CO2

neutral biomass, the plants have madea significant contribution to a reductionof Denmark’s emission of greenhousegases to the atmosphere.

The waste incineration plants existingtoday are therefore not only incinera-tion plants, but also high-technologyenergy works that have an importantsocio-economic mission to fulfil. Theydo this at a price that most of their

counterparts abroad would envy them.The waste, energy and indirect taxpolicy that Denmark has pursued hasbeen a decisive factor, in that theplants have been certain to receive theincinerable waste arising in theirrespective areas and have been given apreferential right to sell the energyproduced.

Even though the sector celebrated itscentenary in 2003 and can look backon constant growth – only temporarilyinterrupted by the war in 1940-45 – incompliance with new environmentalstandards even before they have beenenacted, it cannot rest on its laurels, buthas to keep preparing for new chal-lenges.

One of these challenges is the general

trend towards a liberalisation that pre-vails at present.• Can the plants remain having the

right to receive and treat the wastearising in their area, or will they haveto compete for the waste with otherincineration plants or industrial in-stallations?

• And will they in future be forced tosell the power produced in a free mar-ket economy?

It is the authors’ assessment that Den-mark will face these challenges as bestit can. Internationally, the country willcontinue to set an example in the fieldof waste incineration with energy re-covery and maintain a leading role asan exporter of incineration knowledgeand technology.


46

THE CHALLENGES OF TOMORROWI/S Reno-Nord, Aalborg, extension by unit 4.Architects: Arkitektfirmaet C.F. Møller.Architectural concept and elevations.

Model of I/S FASAN, Næstved, after extensionby a new unit 4 with a capacity of 8 t/h.

Rambøll assisted I/S FASAN in the takeover of Næstved CHP Plant (see p. 36) and is theClient’s Representative in the planning and erection of the new unit 4. Vølund will be supplying both the furnace and boiler.

Architects: Gottlieb & Paludan.

49


48

Why has incineration achieved such a prominent role in Denmark?

Hopefully, the description in this bookhas provided an answer, at least in animplicit and fragmented way. A moresummarising answer could be:

In the second half of the 19th century itwas realised that household waste mustbe collected and taken to landfills.However, major cities like Frederiks-berg, Gentofte and Aarhus soon ran outof available landfill sites, and had toturn to incineration to reduce the volu-me of waste.

From the beginning it was also realisedthat waste is a source of energy, whichcould be exploited for combined heatand power production.

The climate in Denmark is temperate,making home heating a necessityalmost all year round. Until recent dis-coveries of oil and gas in the Danishsector of the North Sea, imported fuelshave covered practically all our grossenergy consumption.

This called for high-efficiency solu-tions, and in the beginning of the 20thcentury district heating became quitewidespread in cities with major powerstations. The German Occupation in1940-45 put a temporary halt to thedevelopment of the Danish society, butin the ‘happy 60s’ everything boomed.New houses and flats, most often hea-ted with district heating, were built at astaggering rate. Bruun & Sørensen (seebox on p. 21) realised that waste is auseful fuel for district heating andchallenged Vølund’s position as theDanish supplier of incinerators. Seen inretrospect, there is little doubt that the

resulting fierce competition betweenVølund and B&S, which made theplants available at large and at compe-titive prices, has meant a lot to the pro-minence of incineration in Denmark.

It also paved the way for specialisedconsultants to stand between the plantowners and the suppliers, and to assistclients in obtaining the necessaryapprovals from the authorities.Rambøll contributed to the develop-ment of waste incineration in Den-mark and also aided in achievingpublicly acceptable and sustainablesolutions.

After the first energy crisis in 1973,energy supply and consumption beca-me a political issue, and since thengovernmental regulation has been tigh-ter and tighter, always recognising thatwaste which cannot be recycled is auseful fuel for heat and later on alsoCHP production – provided that strictenvironmental standards are fulfilled.

In a fairly coherent way, incinerationand district heating have been promo-ted by political agreements as well asby taxes and subsidies.

The waste management policy fol-lowed suit. All waste generation is to bereported, and not only households butalso commercial waste producers areobliged to have their waste collected bythe municipalities or to deliver it to atreatment installation, e.g. an incinera-tion plant devised by the municipality.

The combined effect of these policieshas removed the risks associated withthe long-term investments in the neces-sary incineration capacity, which againhas enabled Denmark – as the firstcountry in the World – to introduce aban on the landfilling of incinerablewaste.

In Denmark, incineration is conceivedas a sensible, indispensable part of thewaste hierarchy.

POSTSCRIPT

Denmark has successfully managed to divert waste away from landfill and move the wasteup the hierarchy to incineration with energy recovery and particularly to recycling. 64 percent of the total waste arisings in Denmark is recycled, while 27 per cent is incinerated and9 per cent landfilled (source: Waste Statistics 2002, Danish Environmental Protection Agency).The photo shows Vestforbrænding's civic amenity site.

Plant Owner Address No.of lines Tot. capacity, t/h

Aalborg I/S Reno-Nord Troensevej 2 3 279220 Aalborg Øst

Aars Aars kommune Dybvad Møllevej 1 2 8.59600 Aars

Aarhus Århus kommunale Værker Ølstedvej 20 3 23.28200 Århus N

Esbjerg L 90 Måde Industrivej 35 1 206705 Esbjerg Ø

Frederikshavn Elsam A/S Vendsysselvej 201 1 59900 Frederikshavn

Glostrup I/S Vestforbrænding Ejbymosevej 219 5 762600 Glostrup

Grenå Grenå kommune Kalorievej 9 1 2.58500 Grenå

Haderslev Elsam A/S Dybkær 2, Marstrup 2 96100 Haderslev

Hadsund Hadsund Bys Fjernvarmeværk Fabriksvej 1 2 2.69560 Hadsund

Hammel Hammel Fjernvarme A.m.b.a. Irlandsvej 6 2 68450 Hammel

Herning EG. Jylland Miljøvej 3 1 57400 Herning

Hjørring AVV I/S Mandøvej 8 2 129800 Hjørring

Hobro I/S Fælles Forbrænding Hvedemarken 13, Postboks 130 2 6.99500 Hobro

Høje-Taastrup I/S Vestforbrænding Lervangen 1-3 2 52630 Høje Taastrup

Holstebro Elsam A/S Energivej 2 2 187500 Holstebro

Horsens Elsam A/S Endelavevej 7 2 108700 Horsens

Hørsholm I/S Nordforbrænding Savsvinget 2 4 192970 Hørsholm

København I/S Amagerforbrænding Kraftværksvej 31 4 482300 København S

Kolding TAS I/S Bronzevej 6 3 17.26000 Kolding

Leirvik Intermunicipal Company, Faroe Islands Hagaleiti 1 2.5FO-520 Leirvik

Middelfart Middelfart Kommune Fynsvej 52 2 45500 Middelfart

Næstved I/S FASAN Ved Fjorden 20 3 13.54700 Næstved

Nykøbing F I/S REFA Energivej 4 3 174800 Nykøbing F.

Odense Elsam A/S, Fynsværket Havnegade 120, Postboks 928 3 325100 Odense C

Rønne I/S BOFA Almegårdsvej 8 1 2.53700 Rønne

Roskilde I/S KARA Håndværkervej 70 3 344000 Roskilde

Skagen Skagen kommune Buttervej 66 1 29990 Skagen

Skanderborg I/S RENO SYD Norgesvej 13 2 9.58660 Skanderborg

Slagelse I/S KAVO Dalsvinget 11 2 104200 Slagelse

Sønderborg Sønderborg Kraftvarmeværk I/S Vestermark 16 1 86400 Sønderborg

Svendborg Svendborg kommune Bodøvej 1 1 65700 Svendborg

Thisted I/S Thyra Industrivej 9 1 6.47700 Thisted

Torshavn Torshavnar Kommuna Post Box 32 1 2.5FO-110 Torshavn

Vejen Elsam A/S Koldingvej 30B 1 4.36600 Vejen

MUNICIPAL WASTE INCINERATION PLANTS IN DENMARK AND THE FAROE ISLANDS


Published by:

Babcock & Wilcox Vølund ApS

Falkevej 2

DK-6705 Esbjerg Ø

Tel. : +45 7614 3400

Fax : +45 7614 3600

E-mail: [email protected]

www.volund.dk

and

Rambøll

Teknikerbyen 31

DK-2830 Virum

Tel. : +45 4598 6000

Fax : +45 4598 8520

E-mail: [email protected]

www.ramboll.dk

Set by: Høiland Design ApS

Printed in Denmark by: P.E. Offset og Reklame

Translated from Danish by: Susanne Nilsson

Copies: 1500

Copyright © Heron Kleis and Søren Dalager 2004

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted without the written permission of the authors.


50

Most of the sources of text are available in Danish only. Below, please find the sources that are directly quoted.Names of periodicals are stated in italics.

Aktieselskabet ‘Vølund’: 1898 FØRSTE JANUAR 1923.

EN SKILDRING AF VIRKSOMHEDENS OPRINDELSE OG VÆKST GENNEM

25 AAR by Aage Christensen. Hertz Bogtrykkeri, Copenhagen

1922

Aktieselskabet Vølund: VØLUND GENNEM 75 ÅR, Brøndby, 1973

Amagerforbrænding: 25 ÅRS AFFALDSBEHANDLING,

Copenhagen 1995

Blach, E: BEHANDLING AF DAGRENOVATION,

Sundhedsplejen, 14, 1962, 50-59

Blach, E: ANLÆG FOR AFFALDSFORBRÆNDING,

Varme, 33, 1968, 74-87

Brauer, Willy: KOMMUNEKEMI – ET DANSK PIONERARBEJDE.

Willy Brauer og Kommunekemi a/s 1991

Dakofa: ELFREMSTILLING VED AFFALDSFORBRÆNDING.

Skrift nr. 2, Copenhagen 1988

Dalager, Søren: FORBRÆNDINGSANSTALTER, STUDIETUR 15. OG 16.

JUNI 1967. A/S Dansk Shell (unpubl.)

dk-TEKNIK: AUXILIARY BURNERS AT MSW INCINERATORS,

1995.08.07 (unpubl.)

Energistyrelsen (Danish Energy Agency): ENERGY 2000. A PLAN

OF ACTION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, Copenhagen 1990

Eriksen, Holger: AARHUS KOMMUNALE FORBRÆNDINGSANSTALT.

THE MUNICIPAL REFUSE DESTRUCTOR PLANT IN AARHUS, 24.

August 1934. Printed by: P. Busch, Aarhus

(in Danish, figure captions in English)

European Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Bureau:

DRAFT REFERENCE DOCUMENT ON BEST AVAILABLE TECHNIQUES

FOR WASTE INCINERATION, March 2004, Seville, Spain.

http://eippcb.jrc.es/pages/FActivities.htm

Forureningsrådet (The Pollution Board). Publikation nr. 6:

LUFTFORURENING. Affaldsforbrænding, Copenhagen 1971

Frederiksberg Kommunes tekniske Forvaltning: FREDERIKSBERG

KOMMUNES FORBRÆNDINGSANSTALT FOR DAGRENOVATION, 1948

ISWA, Working Group on Thermal Treatment of Waste:

ENERGY FROM WASTE, STATE-OF-THE-ART REPORTS

No. 1, 1991, No. 2, 1994, No. 3, 1997 and No. 4, 2002.

ISWA, Copenhagen

Kjersgaard, Erik: BESÆTTELSEN 1940-45,

Vol. I-II, Politikens Forlag, Copenhagen 1980

Kommunekemi a/s: RUNDT OM KOMMUNEKEMI OG MILJØET.

25th anniversary book. Forlaget Tommeliden, Ørbæk 1996

Københavns Belysningsvæsen (Copenhagen Energy):

KØBENHAVNS ELVÆRKER 1892/1992. Copenhagen 1992

Miljøministeriet (Ministry of the Environment): BEKENDTGØRELSE

NR. 162 AF 11. MARTS 2003 OM ANLÆG, DER FORBRÆNDER AFFALD

Miljøstyrelsen (Danish Environmental Protection Agency):

MILJØRAPPORT: DANNELSE OG SPREDNING AF DIOXINER I

FORBINDELSE MED AFFALDSFORBRÆNDING, Copenhagen 1984


VEJLEDNING NR. 3 1986 OM BEGRÆNSNING AF FORURENING

FRA AFFALDSFORBRÆNDINGSANLÆG


'Waste Statistics 2002', Environmental Review no. 2, 2004.


DIOXINEMISSION VED AFFALDSFORBRÆNDING.

Miljøprojekt nr. 117, 1989


VEJLEDNING NR. 2 1993 OM BEGRÆNSNING AF FORURENING

FRA FORBRÆNDINGSANLÆG

Vestforbrænding: FRA KØKKENMØDDING TIL GENBRUGSSTATION.

Anniversary book on Vestforbrænding 1970-1995, Glostrup 1995

Vølund: MODERN STEAM-RAISING REFUSE DESTRUCTORS,

Danish Foreign Office Journal, July 1936

Vølund Ecology Systems: TEKNOLOGI/TECHNOLOGY.

Vølund Ecology Systems, Brøndby 1995 (in Danish and English)

LITERATURE

100 years of waste incineration

Why does D

enmark not have any m

ountains of waste?

And w

hy does the country no longer have odorous

dumps infested w

ith flies, gulls and rats?

This is because D

enmark 100 years ago began to

realise that waste can be exploited for the production

of power and heat; initially in cell furnaces and

eventually in grate fired plants with flue gas treatm

ent

in up to five subsequent steps.

Vølund and Ram

bøll have in each their own w

ay

contributed to this development – and therefore

also have an obligation to celebrate the centenary

of waste incineration in D

enmark and preserve this

particular corner of Danish history.

That is the objective of this book.