Is -End of Wast- Plastic Fuel the Solution to Coal?
Smoke billows from chimneys at coal-fired power plantsin Europe, killing more than two people an hour according to the Silent Killers report
A study carried out by the university in Stuttgart, based on research done, highlights the health impacts of pollution from the use of coal as a fuel for europe' electricity generation, showing a number of 22,300 premature deaths, on an annual basis, which corresponds to the loss of 240,000 years of life.
In addition, air pollution-related diseases from coal-fired power plantsresult in a loss of 5 million working days.
According to this study, which also analysed plans for the construction of 52 new coal-fired power stations, projects that are being implemented or approved, the health impact if these new power stations came into operation would result in the loss of an additional 32,000 years of life each year.
Taking into account that the average life of a coal-fired power station is normally 40 years, in view these new projects would lead to the loss of 1.3 million years of life.
The university, through this study, reaffirmed that clean coal does not exist,and that this type of fuel is one of the main causes of air poisoning.
There are around 300 functioning coal-fired power stationsin Europe, producing a quarter of the electricity consumed in the union, but at the same time producing 70 of the sulphur oxides and more than 40 of the nitrogen oxides from the electricity sector.
These European power stations are the source of about half of all industrial emissions of mercury and a third of arsenic emissions, and finally emit almost a quarter of the total CO2 emissions in Europe.
In health terms, the countries most affected by polluting coal emissions are Poland (more than 5000 deaths per year), Germany, Romania and Bulgaria.
But how could this doubly negative phenomenon be mitigated, both in the aspect of the health impact and in the aspect of the destruction of environmental resources?
An alternative that is taken into account, but perhaps not with due attention, is the fuel that comes from the processing waste of plastic and urban waste, called "End of wast" ?.
This stems precisely from the processing of non-dangerous civil waste and non-dangerous special waste and comes in the form of bulk mince or in pressed bales.
The processing process includes:
Material shredding
The high content of the plastic component inside the recipe allows the achievement of a calorific power, very important.
End of weste fuel is normally used:
Gasification plants
This fuel can be used in dedicated plants or in plants that normally use other types of fuels, but, in both cases, the industrial structure must be equipped with combustion and fume purification technologies capable of reducing the pollutants emitted.
One particular case, which we will see later, concerns the use of End of West fuelin cements as there is a current of thought that claims that traditional clinker-producing furnaces are not able to avoid harmful emissions into the atmosphere.
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