

Oslo is turning garbage into energy and is running out of garbage - danso
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/world/europe/oslo-copes-with-shortage-of-garbage-it-turns-into-energy.html

======
jgj
> Yet though Oslo considered the Italian garbage, it preferred to stick with
> what it said was the cleaner and safer English waste. “It’s a sensitive
> question,” Mr. Mikkelsen said.

This is literally the most intriguing thing in my life right now. What a
tease. Does anyone have insight into why Italian garbage is less safe?

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Oh, you haven’t seen Gomorrah? You’re in for a treat!

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929425/>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomorrah_(film)>

~~~
jgj
Will. Do. Grazie.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Prego. It’s available on iTunes:
<https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/gomorrah/id373145855>

Also on Netflix:
[http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Gomorrah/70100401?locale=e...](http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Gomorrah/70100401?locale=en-
US)

Highly recommended viewing. Officially, it’s fiction, but Italian friends have
told me that it’s an accurate portrayal of what goes on in Italy.

------
stephengillie
Oslo is powering their city by putting black ash into the air, which absorbs
heat from sunlight, slightly increasing the amount of energy in all of our
environmental systems. The place is powered by externalities, just like China.
This solution is no better than coal-generated electricity, and this feel-good
article is no more useful than clean-coal articles.

~~~
riveteye
Hmm. I was under the impression that burning garbage is different in that you
are burning carbon that is already in play in the carbon cycle system - unlike
burning coal, which without human intervention would never be introduced into
the environment at such a rapid pace. I could be wrong! I was disappointed by
the lack of an explanation, or even links to background on the science of this
process. Just a puff/fluff piece IMHO.

~~~
jlgreco
It would really depend on what is being burnt. If it is primarily food waste,
paper products, natural fibers, wood, etc.. then yeah; all of that carbon was
already "in the system". If they are burning lots of garbage made from
petrochemicals then that garbage is basically just another fossil fuel.

As I understand it, the real issue with "clean coal" is not the soot but
rather the CO2. Depending on what this garbage actually is, the CO2 problem
isn't really a problem in this case.

~~~
niels_olson
> in the system

That doesn't make it better. We have too much carbon in the atmosphere. We
should be growing corn for the sole purpose of pouring it into oil wells and
coal shafts.

~~~
ericd
Which would largely turn back into CO2 once the bacteria do their thing.

~~~
niels_olson
Erm, I believe it would turn back into oil and coal, etc.

~~~
ericd
We're not entirely clear on how that works, and our best estimates are that it
takes on the order of hundreds of thousands of years and requires quite a bit
of pressure. The proposal above would basically be a deep landfill, and
generally what will come from landfills in our lifetime is methane, CO2, dirty
water, and a lot of garbage sitting around.

------
jere
This scenario plays out in the board game "Power Grid." It's a game about
running power plants and one of the 4 resources is garbage. It's a great late
game fuel, but it can get scarce.
<http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid>

~~~
martythemaniak
Very good game if you like Catan-style games.

~~~
jere
Agreed. I've heard good things for a while, but I was very impressed when I
played it last week for the first time.

Also (this is why I was tempted to post about it on HN), it's very heavy on
number crunching and has a nice CS feel to it. Placing your cities is, I
think, an instance of minimum spanning trees. Thought MST has a lot of
applications, interestingly the first algorithm for finding them was invented
in 1926 for "efficient electrical coverage of Moravia."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bor%C5%AFvka%27s_algorithm>

------
deltaqueue
I'm still not convinced this is a viable solution for waste management (not
that there's a simple alternative), given the environmental implications. Yes,
air pollution is pretty regulated and has been reduced significantly since the
80's[1], but the residues resulting from the filtering process are still
heavily toxic and it's not clean by any means[2].

[1]
[http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Waste_Inciner...](http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Waste_Incineration_A_Potential_Danger.pdf)

[2] Section 10: <http://www.ecomed.org.uk/content/IncineratorReport_v3.pdf>

------
Brajeshwar
Can you please come to India and help us. We need this very badly.

~~~
bernardoopinto
That was it came to my mind when I read the article!: "Why not expand to
India?"

~~~
zkar
Being a tropical country, India does not need much of indoor heating. Fine
option for heating water.

~~~
CanSpice
India needs electricity though, and this can be used to generate electricity.

~~~
cmircea
Doesn't seem to be that efficient though. Random stuff doesn't burn as hot as
coal or oil.

------
jtchang
I always thought burning garbage is really bad for the environment. Aren't
there dangerous chemicals that are released if the garbage is not incinerated?

~~~
ChuckMcM
At least in the US, a modern incinerator produces cleaner exhaust gases than a
power plant does. This is because the air quality restrictions are quite
tight, and building an incinerator from the ground up with those restrictions
in mind results in exhaust flues with filters to catalyze by products into
non-aerosols.

That said, providing heat is the best use for this since even low grade heat
(100 - 150 degrees C) is usable for heating buildings and water for washing
etc. But you can't pull a lot of electricity out of it with steam turbines.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This would work very well for the central heating systems (mostly coal or gas
based) of northern China. We also have plenty of garbage to burn. But I
wouldn't trust the government to implement it with the correct environmental
safeguards.

------
up_and_up
What about using thermo depolymerization?

Basically, using heat and pressure, turn literally anything that is carbon-
based into water, natural gas and oil.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization>

<http://robertrapier.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/tdp12.png>

[http://www.stvnbrgs.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/2013-01-2...](http://www.stvnbrgs.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/2013-01-22b.jpg)

------
kjetil
Slightly related fun fact: Oslo also uses recovered heat from sewage to heat
homes.

<http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/4032>

------
johansch
History-less american barbarians! :)

Sweden started this craze: actually Norway exported their garbage there:

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-
way/2012/10/28/163823839/swe...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-
way/2012/10/28/163823839/sweden-wants-your-trash)

Or see here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4702319>

~~~
13b9f227ecf0
The word you're looking for is ahistorical.

------
teeja
Lest we of the US be inclined to scoff, most of what we burn is garbage -
coal, oil, gas, dead wood, all remnants of dead life. The world has abundant
natural energies, but for a century we've feasted on the easiest. Now the bill
is due.

------
rexreed
I suggest expansion into Mumbai... plagued by trash, lacking reliable energy.

~~~
niels_olson
Unlike a developed country like Norway, doing this in Mumbai almost makes
sense. Get them quickly up to a level where they can hop over a bunch of our
generational mistakes and go straight to solar.

But in a developed country with abundant hydroelectric resources, this is
shameful. Unless they recover all the waste products, including all the gases
and ash, and bury them in old mines.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The heat is not useful for generating electricity, it could be used to heat
buildings, but I bet that is hardly a concern in Mumbai.

------
mathiasben
Could existing landfills be mined to supply this need?

~~~
lobster_johnson
There was a recent episode of Bang Goes the Theory [1] about how the UK has
started to turn landfills into "bioreactors" [2], by covering them with earth
(essentially turning them into parks). Underneath the top-soil layer, the
landfill is covered with a layer that traps the methane and sends it into a
methane-capturing system.

[1] <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s1mzl>

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ttrreeww
I guess we can ship our to be recycled electronic parts to them instead of
Chinese landfills then.

------
auctiontheory
Apparently Oslo needs to come help me clean my apartment.

