Air Monitoring 25
Table 1. Results of the UIOM 14C project. The values mentioned are average values. CO2
Type of system
Number of samples
emissions Biogenic Fossil Waste composition in mass
Biogen, z.B. Biomass,
Paper, carton, etc.),
MWI RDF
148 10
58 % 70 %
42 % 30 %
67 % 78 %
fossil fuels, e.g. plastics, petroleum- based
synthetic
products, etc. 19 % 20 %
non-
combustible material (e.g. glass, earth, metal, etc.).
14 % 2%
55 % 68 %
Renewable energy
year, that an uncertainty in the determination of only 1% of the biogenic fraction can lead to too high costs with variation of somewhere between 45,000.00 € and 100,000.00 €.
Such amounts stress the financial importance for an accurate determination of the biogenic CO2
emissions.
The AMESA B system has already demonstrated in several installations, including in the UK (e.g. Plymouth), that it is an easy and accurate way for the determination of the biogenic fraction of the CO2
emissions.
Figure 2: Biogenic CO2
components in the exhaust gas of a waste incineration plant in a tourist area
After the sampling period of e.g. 1 month, the adsorber cartridge is replaced by a new one and the next sampling is restarted. In
this way, it is possible to have a continuous sampling of the CO2 of the flue gas during the complete year. This method is like the continuous dioxin emission monitoring which is used for almost 30 years.
Applications and results
Over the last few years several projects were realized. One of these projects was the UIOM 14
C project [5] - a cooperation
project with the French environmental agency Ademe, fnade, Cabinet MERLIN and ENVEA.
During this project, CO2 samples were taken over a period of 12 months on a total of 10 MWI´s and one RDF plant. The AMESA
B system was used to determine the biogenic proportion of CO2 emissions and the resulting share of renewable energy. The amount of waste incinerated in these plants corresponds to approximately 10% of the total amount of waste incinerated in France.
With the help of the MASSBIO2 method developed by Cabinet Merlin, the biogenic and fossil mass fraction of the fuel and the share of renewable energy can be calculated based on the biogenic and fossil fraction of CO2
emissions.
The results of the analysis of 148 samples in the 10 MWI’s and 10 samples in the RDF plant are shown in Table 1.
As seen in the table, the average biogenic CO2 fraction in the
MWI´s is 67% and in the RDF plant is 78% which was higher than expected and published before.
The results found in this project are also in line with the continuous monitoring of the biogenic CO2
fraction in a waste
incineration plant for about 6 years. This facility is a waste incineration plant in a tourist area, which consists of two lines. In addition to household waste, sewage sludge is also partially incinerated here. Due to the strongly fluctuating number of people between the high season and the low season, strongly fluctuating amounts of waste are also generated. For this reason, not both lines are in permanent operation.
Figure 2 shows the biogenic CO2 fraction of the flue gas. Over
the years, a repeating pattern can be observed with lower biogenic fractions in the summer months (green circles) and higher biogenic fractions in the winter months (red circles). The
cause of this still needs to be investigated in more detail and may be related to poor waste separation with relating higher plastic content in the waste, during the high season periods.
4. Conclusions
With increasing numbers of Emission Trading Systems, the accurate determination of GHG emissions is getting more and more important. The implementation of waste incineration plants in national ETS-systems has already been realized in some countries and is discussed in the EU. Municipal solid waste and RDF is a quite inhomogeneous waste in comparison to coal or natural gas. Therefore, good, and easy methods are
needed for this industrial sector to determine the total CO2 emissions of the plants.
Additionally, this fuel contains a significant portion of biomass. As in all ETS-systems the GHG credits are only needed for the fossil fraction of the CO2
emissions it’s very important to have
easy and accurate methods to determine the biogenic CO2 fraction of the flue gas.
The results show that the current approach of assuming 50% of the CO2
emissions from waste incineration plants and RDF
plants as biogenic can lead to an underestimation! In particular, the presented long-term measurements in a waste incineration plant show that the biogenic portion can be subject to considerable fluctuations over the course of the year.
The actual prices for 1 ton of CO2 vary in the different ETSs.
Between 45.00 € in the German Fuel Trading act and around 100 € in the UK carbon tax regulation. For example, this means that for a midsize EfW plant with a capacity of 100,000 tons per year relating to the emission of approx. 100,000 tons CO2
per
References
[1] ICAP Status report 2023,
https://icapcarbonaction.com/en/ publications/emissions-trading-worldwide-2023-icap-status- report
[2] Directive 2023/959,
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/ dir/2023/959/oj
[3] Directive 2023/2122,
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_ impl/2023/2122/oj
[4]
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/behg/BEHG.pdf
[5] Determination of the biogenic and fossil contents of residual household waste and an SRF, based on a 14c analysis of the CO2
of post-combustion gases, Ademe, France, November 2020
Author Contact Details Jürgen Reinmann • ENVEA GmbH • Address: Benzstrasse 11 61352 Bad Homburg, Germany • Tel: +49 6172 921380 • Email:
j.reinmann@
envea.global • Web:
www.envea.global
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