The Garbage MenChristian Grady, Kunind, William

Smith

Table of Contents What is MSW?

How it’s going to work?

Our Focus?

Calculations!

Feasibility

Credibility

What is MSW? Municipal solid waste is defined as

trash or garbage that is usually thrown away by households.

Americans generated 250 million tons of MSW in 2010.

54% of this waste was sent to landfills.

MSW Distribution

Figure 1: Total MSW generation in 2013

Our goal: turn this waste into useful electric power

MSW to Energy Power Plant

Figure 2. Sample MSW power plant diagram

How MSW to Energy Plants work: Essentially, these plants burn MSW to

power steam turbines. These turbines send electricity to the

power grid. The products of this burning process

are water vapor and harmless ash that is used for aggregate and metals.

The rest of this ash is disposed in landfills but takes up 90% less space than MSW

Our Focus: Shelby County,TN

Shelby County produced 120,000 tons of MSW in 2005 (the latest available complete data).

We used half of this value for our calculations: 60,500 tons.

According to the IWEA, one ton of MSW can yield 550 kWh to the grid.

Energy and Power CalculationsEgenerated=(60,500 tons) x (550 kWh/ton)

=1.66x107 kWh

Power = Egenerated/time= 1.66x107 kWh/8760 hrs

= 1900 W

Power = 1.9 kW

Steam Turbine With this, we can choose a turbine.

Figure 3. A200 steam turbine diagram/description

FeasibilityBelow we have both the data for power plant operating costs and the average cost of energy in Shelby County.

Table 1. Average power plant operating expenses

Table 2. MLWG energy charge per month

Feasability From this data, we can calculate the

operating cost for the year:

And the amount our plant would make every year:

Feasibility From our research, we found a similar

plant and were able to proportionally determine a startup cost of $10.5 million.

This allows us to estimate a payback period:

Table 3. Final results

Resources energy.siemens.com. Web. November 1, 2016. energyrecoverycouncil.org. Web. November 1, 2016. Hodge, B. K. Alternative Energy Systems and Applications. Hoboken: John Wiley

& Sons, Inc., 2010. Print. memphistn.gov. Web. November 1, 2016. powergen.gepower.com. Web. November 1, 2016. wte.org. Web. November 1, 2016. "Memphis Light, Gas and Water - Commercial", Mlgw.com, 2016. [Online].

Available: http://www.mlgw.com/commercial/commercialrates. [Accessed: 29- Nov- 2016].

"Waste-to-Energy (Municipal Solid Waste) - Energy Explained, Your Guide To Understanding Energy - Energy Information Administration", Eia.gov, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm/data/index.cfm?page=biomass_waste_to_energy. [Accessed: 29- Nov- 2016].

"How much does it cost to generate electricity with different types of power plants? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)", Eia.gov, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=19&t=3. [Accessed: 29- Nov- 2016].

The End

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