War on Waste

Jordi Vilardell explains the benefits of converting waste to energy and how this could help dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Waste-to-energy conversion is an increasingly recognized approach to resolving the issues of waste management and sustainable energy. What particular benefits can waste-to-energy bring, both in economic and environmental terms?
Jordi Vilardell. The re-use of waste brings manifold of economic benefits: the safe disposal, the recovery and the production of energy. In environmental terms, it is very beneficial as it prevents the emission of many tons of CO₂ and CH₄ (methane) into the atmosphere, which is unquestionably very important. Another benefit, which nowadays hardly any companies regard as important, but which our company, Agergas, gives the same importance as to those already mentioned, is the social benefit. The energy produced by our company is directly returned to the society, for instance, in a form of public light, heated water for municipal swimming pools or energy for municipal buildings, etc.

With rising oil prices and increased demand for energy, there is a need to find sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels. What potential does waste-to-energy have as a replacement to more conventional sources of power?
JV. Energy recycled from waste is a good alternative particularly for small towns, which normally produce proportionally more waste than bigger cities. Furthermore, big factories and livestock normally reside in the countryside and the large amounts of waste produced by them bring about big problems, due to the lack of an adequate infrastructure. In these villages, up to 60 percent of fossil fuels could be substituted for renewable energy obtained from the recycling of local waste. In Spain 80 percent of communities do not possess a natural gas connection and the heavy butane gas bottle is still in common use.

What are the key challenges of creating effective waste-to-energy processes? How is the industry working to overcome them?
JV. The most difficult thing to accomplish is good process management from the very beginning: starting with citizens correctly separating their waste, public authorities doing their task and finishing with the processes in the waste-to-energy plant. If we manage to improve every link of that chain, the biggest part of the problem will already be solved.

To achieve this, we have to educate at all levels: make the citizens and the administration realize that the little but necessary effort they have to make and the new habits they have to adopt are in their best interest. Better management means minimized costs and cheaper energy and that is what we are all looking for.

Can you tell us about any examples of successful implementation of waste-to-energy initiatives that you have been involved in?
JV. First of all, I would like to emphasize, that Agergas is primarily acting in rural areas to comply with our vision, which differentiates us from the competition. We believe that renewable energy is not only more ecological and more economic, but it also improves the standard of people's lives.

We are currently developing a private project near the city of Dubai, where we compile the industrial and livestock waste from a few local municipalities and as a result, in the middle of the desert, we are about to offer a complete service of electricity, hot water and upgraded biogas as a means of cooking for the entire city. While the electricity will be delivered to the clients via existing installations, the upgraded biogas will be supplied by a local pipeline network, which connects the plant directly with the houses.

In Spain we are working on a similar project in the province of Valladolid, where we also solve the very serious problem of livestock waste that massively contaminates the area. Instead of the common practice of biogas feeding into the natural gas pipeline network, the benefit of our supply method is that the biogas is delivered exactly to the locality where it was produced.

Jordi Vilardell has been an entrepreneur from an early age and set up his first business aged just 17. Years later he launched a prosperous business in the construction industry. He established several companies related to that sector, including an architect's consulting agency and a property development agency. Currently he is the head, founder and CEO of Agergas.