As an infrastructure project manager based in Qatar. Lisa Dudzik has almost two decades of exposure in project management, mergers and acquisitions, claims management, and contract administration. She received her MBA from the University of Ottawa and has worked on large-scale energy projects, including power plants.
While the usual types of power plants (ie., coal, oil, hydroelectric) are still being planned and constructed, newer types of power generation techniques using biomass are starting to make a dent in the world’s energy needs.
In China alone, there are over 400 plants that generate energy by incinerating solid waste. These plants use fluidized bed combustion to efficiently burn solid fuels while reducing sulfur production. The EU has over 431 waste-to-energy plants, while the United States has 89 as of 2004. These include the Essex County Resource Recovery Facility in Newark, New Jersey and the Teesside EfW Plant; the latter provides 29.2 MW of electricity for the National Grid.
A larger facility, the Dublin Waste-to-Energy Facility, is being constructed by Covanta Energy Corp. As of August 2016, it is already 70% complete. The Dublin plant is expected to generate 58 MW yearly. The facility is on track to start commercial operations by the end of 2017. A similar facility will be built north of London in 2017.
Lisa Dudzik is from Perth, where Covanta is working with authorities in coming up with a proposed waste-to-energy project. As of this writing, the project is still in the early development stages while explorations with partners and fuel suppliers are ongoing.
While waste-to-energy will not completely replace coal and gas anytime soon, their rapid development and construction is expected to significantly reduce the amount of solid waste in landfills all over the world. After all, if it takes energy to produce a product that would become solid waste later on, solid waste can be used to produce energy as well.
Stay tuned to this blog to read more from Lisa Dudzik.