Potentiality of waste-to-energy sector coupling in the MENA region : Jordan as a case study

Population growth, urbanization, and changes in lifestyle have led to an increase in waste generation quantities. The waste management system in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is still considered an adolescent system, while developed countries have made great progress in this field, including regulation, financing, administration, separation at source, recycling, and converting waste to energy. At the same time, in the MENA region, the best performance of the recycling process is around 7-10% of total waste. Nowadays, many developed countries like Germany are shifting from waste management to material flow systems, which represent the core of a circular economy. Also, it should be stated here that all countries that have a robust and integrated waste management system include waste-to-energy (W-to-E) incineration plants in their solutions for dealing with residual waste, which is still generated after passing through the entire treatment cycle (hierarchy). Therefore, this paper illustrates the potentiality of embedding waste incineration plants in the MENA region, especially in large cities, and addressing the economic and financial issues for the municipalities. Cities in these countries would like to build and operate waste treatment plants; however, municipalities do not have the sustainable investment and operating costs. The solution is to maximize the income from the output, such as energy, recycling materials, etc. In addition, the MENA region is facing another dilemma, which is water scarcity due to climate change, increasing evaporation, and reduction of precipitation. This research illustrates a simulated model for a waste incineration plant in the MENA region. The EBSILON 13.2 software package was used to achieve this process. Furthermore, the simulated plant applies the concept of waste-to-energy-to-water, so that not only is waste converted to energy but, by efficient usage of multi-stage flash (MSF) technology, this system is able to generate 23 MWe of electric power and 8500 m³/day of potable water. A cost analysis was also implemented to calculate the cost of thermal treatment of each ton of municipal solid waste (MSW) during the life span of the plant. It was found that the average cost of treatment over 30 years would be around US$39/ton.