Incinerators: Carbon Emissions

(asked on 22nd January 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what information his Department holds on biogenic CO2e emissions from waste incineration with energy recovery; and where such information is published.


Answered by
 Portrait
Claire Perry
This question was answered on 25th January 2018

Defra commissioned a report “Biodegradability of municipal solid waste” (project reference WR1003) which provides measurements of the biogenic content of waste by mass. Waste incinerators which are in receipt of government support are required by OfGEM to either provide assessments of the biogenic content of the waste or to use a disadvantageous default value. The Defra report is available on their science and research project website:

http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=12266_WR1003BiodegradabilityofMSWReportfinal.pdf.

Emissions from UK waste incineration are included in the UK Greenhouse gas emissions inventory annually:

http://unfccc.int/national_reports/annex_i_ghg_inventories/national_inventories_submissions/items/10116.php.

These emissions estimates are split by biogenic and non-biogenic, however this is not possible for municipal solid waste (MSW).

Emissions from UK waste incineration, including waste incineration with energy recovery, for the years 2010-2015 were as follows:

Million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e)

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

Total UK waste incineration (includes waste incineration with energy recovery)1

2.2

2.1

2.3

2.2

2.8

3.6

Of which:

Non-biogenic (including all MSW)

2.1

2.1

2.3

2.2

2.7

3.5

Biogenic

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.0

0.0

1 Totals may not sum due to rounding

This includes emissions from methane (CH4) and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) as well as carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

These emissions are included in our annual submission to the UNFCCC. Waste incineration can be found in table 5 of the Convention tables on the UNFCCC website:

http://unfccc.int/files/national_reports/annex_i_ghg_inventories/national_inventories_submissions/application/zip/gbr-2017-crf-13apr17.zip

The numbers above do not match the numbers presented in the table 5 of the Convention tables submitted to the UNFCCC as waste incineration with energy recovery is reported under the energy supply sector (table 1).

Source: http://unfccc.int/national_reports/annex_i_ghg_inventories/national_inventories_submissions/items/10116.php

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