Is it better to burn or bury waste for clean electricity generation?

The use of municipal solid waste (MSW) to generate electricity through landfill-gas-to-energy (LFGTE) and waste-to-energy (WTE) projects represents roughly 14% of U.S. nonhydro renewable electricity generation. Although various aspects of LFGTE and WTE have been analyzed in the literature, this paper is the first to present a comprehensive set of life-cycle emission factors per unit of electricity generated for these energy recovery options. In addition, sensitivity analysis is conducted on key inputs (e.g., efficiency of the WTE plant landfill gas management schedules, oxidation rate, and waste composition) to quantify the variability in the resultant life-cycle emissions estimates. While methane from landfills results from the anaerobic breakdown of biogenic materials, the energy derived from WTE results from the combustion of both biogenic and fossil materials. The greenhouse gas emissions for WTE ranges from 0.4 to 1.5 MTCO2e/MWh, whereas the most agressive LFGTE scenerio results in 2.3 MTCO2e/MWh. WTE also produces lower NO(x) emissions than LFGTE, whereas SO(x) emissions depend on the specific configurations of WTE and LFGTE.