Markets

Municipal Waste

Waste management has become one of the fastest growth industries in North America during the last several years.

• In North America it is expected that expenditures for municipal and industrial resource recovery plants (garbage into energy) will exceed $10 billion by the year 2010. This figure does not include systems that are non-energy producing. It is also separate from incinerator processes required to clean up the toxic waste sites that number in excess of 25,000 in North America.

• The magnitude of the waste problem is evidenced by the increased amount of waste produced in North America. In 1960, the average North American threw away 2.7 pounds of trash a day. Today, the average North American throws away 4.6 pounds of trash every day! This amounts to 250 million tons of waste per year. At present only 17 percent of this waste is being used in waste-to-energy plants.

• The estimated size of the public sector waste-to-energy market grows daily and is now in excess of 25 billion.

• To take this a step further, in regards to the potential market of this technology, one has only to look at those industries that produce combustible by-products from their primary process. The ability to produce energy from waste as a form of conservation is an extremely large embryonic industry.

• Waste to power generation is now responsible for approximately 5% of the USA energy production and is expected to reach 15% in the next few years. As the cost of energy becomes more unpredictable, more effort will be make on retrieving energy from the wastes produced by industry and our own domestic lifestyles.

• North Americans now produce the most garbage per capita of any civilization known to man. With 40% of its population presently living in urban areas, and expected to increase to 50% by the year 2010, it is becoming increasingly difficult to dispose (landfill) of this waste in an economical and health fashion.

• The magnitude of this disposal problem is evident when most cities are actively considering or finding alternative methods of disposal. Alternate methods which include waste-to-energy systems.

• Energyquest can assist in the alternate methods of disposal by supplying environmentally sound waste to energy systems.