What can be better than replacing costly fuel with garbage? I am not kidding. South Korea has opened the world’s largest garbage-fuelled power plant and expects to reduce its imports of heavy oil by 500,000 barrels a year as a result. The 50-megawatt plant, designed to provide power to more than 180,000 households, began operations on Tuesday.
The plant is situated at city of Incheon, west of Seoul. It uses garbage as raw material that naturally decomposes to give methane. Methane is further used as fuel to create electricity.
This plant will not only provide the country with a cheap alternative for electricity production but will also reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 1.37 million tones per year by burning methane gas. A private company has took the initiative for this 77 billion project and will operate the plant for 11 years before handing the commercial rights over to the government.
South Korea depends upon nuclear power plants for electricity with them accounting for 40% of share in production. Many similar garbage fuel power plants being constructed and some are already operational.
This is a great step by the community to meet the growing demands of fuel in most eco-friendly way. I think this is good source of inspiration for other nations to adapt this technology because as far as availability of raw material is concerned finding garbage is not a big problem.
Via: seedmagazine
