Thursday, July 14, 2011
LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- The Municipal Council is closely looking into the green coal project to solve the solid waste problem in the municipality proposed by a Belgian company with European and Chinese shareholders.
The green coal project focuses on environmental protection and renewable energy.
It transforms the municipal solid waste to green coal pellets through Enext, implementing the best available technologies using a "waste to energy" principle on the Chinese market.
"The waste processing plant will serve as a receptacle for solid waste for a number of municipalities," said Enext Philippines project director Rita Papey.
In patent pending environmentally friendly processes, she added, the solid waste is completely converted into either renewable energy or renewable products.
Generating renewable energy through biogas fired co-generation and producing solid biomass containing fuel, has the advantage of reducing carbon dioxide emission since it is capable of substituting the use of coal.
"The processing of waste prevents toxic emissions from the garbage which is good for the environment," said Papey. "With the technology, it makes waste profitable," he added.
“The technology proposed is good which converts waste into coal and coal to use as energy,” said Counilor Arthur Shontogan.
“There are proposed projects with regard to solid waste management before Enext technology, so there’s no assurance that we will adopt the proposal though we are also giving considerations,” he added.
Among the proposed projects is the Uber-Utility Waste Management, a Japanese plasma technology requiring zero power-fuel maintenance and releases no greenhouse gases. The technology can decompose all organic classes of waste such as paper, wood, Styrofoam and agricultural wastes. In addition, Strategic Link Corporation proposes the Express Composting System (ECS), a Filipino innovation converting organic wastes into ready solid and liquid fertilizers, not in 45 days but only fifteen minutes, and instantly eliminates obnoxious odor from the garbage.
“We also have to consider the requirements imposed in this project. The technology requires 200 tons of solid waste a day, but the municipality produces only 30-50 tons daily,” Shontogan added.
Meanwhile, the proposal needs further study. “We will be creating technical people to study the proposal before giving appropriate actions,” the councilor assured.
Published in the Sun.Star Baguio newspaper on July 14, 2011.
The investment into alternative power generating technologies such as nuclear energy may need to be measured against the potential cost when things turn against you as unfortunately happened this year in Japan. The use of thermal coal (steam coal) that is mostly burnt for power generation may be valid for other countries who may not be able to allocate resources and funds to alternative sources of power. Coal newsletters and coal statistics show developing economies are more likely to increase their investment into & their use of thermal coal & metallurgical coal in coming years because of coal's affordability and ability to quickly meet increasing demands for electricity and steel. Ian www.coalportal.com
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