Mayor's Report - July 2009

One of the biggest challenges presently facing Metro Vancouver is the updating of its Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP). This involves examining the region's options for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management and the mechanisms to deal with the residual wastes that cannot be diverted through '3R' initiatives because the residual wastes cannot be practically and economically recycled. Public consultations on the region's Zero Waste Challenge indicate strong support for adoption of a 70% diversion target to be achieved by 2015. Discussion now needs to take place on the options, such as waste-to-energy facilities and land-filling, for managing the one-million-plus tonnes of solid waste that remains after diversion.

The Metro Vancouver board recently received a report entitled: Comparative Analysis of Options for Management of Waste after Recycling that was also summarized in a powerpoint presentation. Three MSW technologies were reviewed: Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) to stabilize waste before landfilling or to produce a Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) for industrial use; Waste-to-Energy (WTE) with energy recovery (electricity and heat); and landfilling with Landfill Gas (LFG) utilization. Eight integrated waste management scenarios using different configurations of the three technologies, in combination with existing waste management facilities, were compared:

• Large new in-region WTE facility (750,000 t/a new WTE capacity);
• Moderate new in-region WTE facility (500,000 t/a new WTE capacity);
• In-region use of RDF product (500,000 t/a to MBT facility for RDF in-region);
• Out-of-region use of RDF product (500,000 t/a to MBT facility for RDF export);
• Waste exported out-of-region to WTE (500,000 t/a exported out-of-region);
• Local landfilling of MBT product (995,000 t/a processed by MBT for local landfill);
• Maximize local landfilling (750,000 t/a to the Vancouver Landfill);
• Maximize out-of-region landing (230,000 t/a to the Vancouver Landfill).

The environmental burdens and benefits of the eight scenarios were analyzed using lifecycle assessment, and the observations were as follows:

• Transportation is not a key source of air emissions, including Green House Gases (GHG), but does consume energy;
• Low carbon electricity in BC means that electricity generation results in limited amounts of avoided GHG emissions;
• Displacing natural gas through district heating use avoids GHG and air emissions;
• Local emissions can be different from total lifecycle results;
• All scenarios generally have similar loadings on the Lower Fraser Valley airshed;
• NO_x and particulate emissions are of special interest because they are the precursors to smog;
• For the base case scenarios, WTE with district heating would have lowest net NO_x emissions, and in-region landfilling would have highest net NO_x emissions;
• " If WTE is used for electricity production only, i.e. no district heat, then WTE in the region would have higher NO_x emissions than landfill, and out-of-region landfills still have NO_x emissions but they don't affect Lower Fraser Valley airshed.

The financial costs and benefits of the eight scenarios were analyzed using a high level model designed to show comparative base case levelized costs, and the observations were as follows:

• Scenarios with more WTE are 3% to 17% less costly than scenarios with a landfill focus;
• Scenarios with RDF and/or out-of-region facilities are slightly more costly than scenarios with a landfill focus;
• All scenarios are in a similar cost range, except the MBT with landfill combination;
• The MBT and stabilized residual disposal scenario is substantially more costly than other scenarios due to much higher processing requirements, no energy revenue from landfill gas, and only minor recycling revenue;
• If there is no district energy and WTE produces electricity only, then landfill focussed scenarios have an edge;
• If WTE scenarios in region sell only half of the modeled district energy, then costs are similar to a landfill focus;
• If the electricity price is lower than modeled in the base case, then the ranking does not change but the WTE advantage is smaller;
• Scenarios with new WTE have higher investment and higher initial costs;
• After capital is paid-off, WTE scenarios have lower costs because of energy revenue;
• MBT with stabilized residual disposal remains the highest cost scenario by a large margin; and
• MBT with stabilized residual disposal has continually escalating costs because there are no offsetting revenues and additional capital investment is needed to keep pace with growing waste volumes.

The Metro Vancouver board also received a report entitled: Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) Modelling of Possible Solid Waste Management Scenarios that was also summarized in a powerpoint presentation. This report discusses the methodology adopted for the assessment of the emissions associated with the eight scenarios described above, and provides model results for the 2005 base case and all scenarios.

The report provides a context for the health benefits from ambient ozone and PM improvement based on a 2005 health and air quality study by the BC Lung Association that applies to all eight scenarios:

• A 1% improvement in annual ozone and PM_2.5 concentrations between 2000 and 2010 can produce health-related benefits on the order of $17 million per year;
• Reduced mortality, fewer emergency room visits, decrease in restricted activity days, and fewer asthma symptom days;
• Scenario modelling shows 14% and 3% improvement in ozone and PM_2.5 levels during an 8-day summer period; and
• Summer improvements in ozone and PM_2.5 levels would lead to overall annual improvements and therefore health-related benefits.

The key observations of the air quality modelling report are summarized as follows:

• There will be emissions associated with waste management for the foreseeable future;
• Future waste management emissions under any scenario are comparable to present day and are very low relative to airshed totals (from <0.1% to 1.2%);
• Airshed wide improvements in ambient levels of ozone and PM_2.5 are predicted due to declining emission levels of several precursors; and
• Community multi-scale air quality (CMAQ) modelling shows no discernible difference between the eight scenarios.

The foregoing will now be used as the basis for an informed decision Metro Vancouver must make to manage MSW when updating its solid waste management plan.

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