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Home – Research – Publications – Powering Our Future with Trash D I G E ST Powering Our Future with Trash RICHARD LING | MARCH 21, 2019 S HAR E O N EMERGING TECH, ELECTRICITY Waste-to-energy technology, which utilizes trash to produce viable energy, has the potential to address two of the most urgent needs of this century —waste destruction and energy demand. DOWN LOAD PDF Introduction Every year, our world produces around 2.1 billion tons of waste, which ultimately emits over 7.7 billion tons of greenhouse gases (GHGs) over a breakdown period of 20 years (Roberts 2018). Current tactics to combat GHG emissions from waste include recycling, composting, source reduction, and—the topic of this policy digest— waste-to-energy (WTE) technology. WTE technology can potentially address two of the world’s largest problems: waste destruction and energy demand (both of which will compound with population growth). To date, roughly 2,200 WTE plants are active worldwide, which constitute roughly 300 million tons of disposal capacity (Ecoprog 2018). The U.S., by comparison, currently holds around 86 WTE facilities, which account for just 0.25% of the nation’s total generation capacity (Research and Markets 2018; EIA 2017). Given WTE’s potential benefits and the U.S.’s scarce utilization of this seemingly-utopian technology, this policy digest will discuss the social, political, and economic environments that foster and inhibit WTE
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