

Sweden Needs More Trash, Because It Has Turned All It's Got Into Energy - exolxe
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680763/sweden-needs-more-trash-because-it-has-turned-all-its-got-into-energy

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

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gosub
It's like you are selling them an energy source for a negative amount of
money.

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

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

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

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whatshisface
Burning trash releases (among other things) dioxins. They are thought to cause
cancer, according to the EPA.

<http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/CFM/nceaQFind.cfm?keyword=Dioxin>

However, I am sure clever filtering could solve the problem.

(Credit where credit is due: A banned user posted a link to a UK guardian
article about air pollution due to garbage incineration, giving me a good
place to start my research.)

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jws
Dioxins are created by burning trash at low temperatures, e.g. in a personal
burn barrel. At high temperatures dioxins are destroyed. Please don't scare
the Swedes.

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jonke
At high temperatures above 1000 degrees C, dioxin decomposes and the
incinerators here are constructed for that.

Offical numbers: "The total emissions of dioxins to air in Sweden in 2008 was
about 38 grams of TCDD equivalents."

Of that 5g is supposed to be from wasteburning. (That number is disputed by
greenpeace who claims that to be 114g)

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Wintamute
Wait, isn't it better to actually recycle this stuff, rather than just burn
it? By burning it aren't we forever losing access to that physical matter by
just turning it into heat radiation? What if we need it later?

EDIT: It sounds like the Swedes mainly burn the organic waste, and recycle
what can be recycled. If that is the case, fair enough. Would have liked to
see discussion about this in the article, seems fairly key.

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maxerickson
The energy released is stored in the chemical bonds of the material being
burned.

Matter is neither created nor destroyed in the process. Some of it "goes up in
smoke", but we can use plants to capture those things back out of the air
(either the green things or energy intensive industrial ones) .

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Wintamute
Yeah, mainly correct but a small part of the matter is lost. That part which
escapes from the system into space as IR radiation is practically speaking
ever beyond our grasp. Its the Law of Conservation of matter/energy.

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maxerickson
Human energy utilization is a fraction of a fraction of the solar energy that
moves in and out of the earth system. Heat lost from burning is not something
worth worrying about right now.

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

