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California Report Supports Exempting Waste-to-Energy from Cap & Trade

Date: July 20, 2012

Source: News Room

A new report by California's waste department shows that waste-to-energy plants appear to have a smaller carbon footprint than previously thought and indicates that methane emission leaks at landfills may be greater than originally thought. The report "waste-to-energy and avoided landfill methane emissions" could determine whether the state's air resources board includes waste-to-energy facilities in the state's greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade program and whether project operators would have to buy costly GHG allowances to comply under the system.

The report concludes that waste-to-energy facilities provide net avoided methane emissions compared with waste otherwise disposed in a California landfill. It also finds that the average methane control efficiency of California landfills is 62%, which is based on "theoretical maximum methane generation." Environmentalists in the state have traditionally opposed waste-to-energy, including other conversion technologies for fear that they could create localized air pollution problems and threaten the viability of recycling programs.

ARB officials at first sought to exempt waste-to-energy facilities from the state's cap-and-trade program for fear that raising costs would drive more waste to landfills. However, they later abandoned the proposal based on the environmentalists' argument that incineration increases overall GHG emissions because plastics, for example, do not decompose in landfills and therefore do not release GHGs into the atmosphere. They further argue that exempting waste-to-energy plants from cap-and-trade would reduce beneficial recycling and composting efforts.

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