Ten thousand tons of consumer garbage thrown away by 1 million
residents living in Pudong of Shanghai no longer need to be buried
in the fields. Instead, the garbage is now used to generate power
in a large-scale garbage incineration power plant, the first of its
kind in Chinese mainland.
The power plant, located in the Yuqiao Industrial Park in Pudong
New Area, has a garbage disposal capacity of 1,000-1,100 tons
daily, which means one fourteenth of the 14,000 tons of consumer
wastes produced in Shanghai. By burning the garbage, it generates
300,000-350,000 kwh electricity each day, enough for 100,000
households.
The power plant covers an area of 80,000 square meters and its
total investment cost US$80 million, including US$30 million loaned
from the French government. Its technology and equipments,
involving three furnaces and two 8,500 kw turbo-units, are from
ALSTOM of France.
The power plant was put into trial operation on September 20, 2002
with the approval of the Shanghai Environmental Protection
Administration. Up to now, 60.41 million kwh electricity has been
generated. Apart the 16.52 million kwh consumed by itself, the
plant has provided 43.89 million kwh to the city.
The garbage power plant will help save land used for garbage
disposal. City dwellers of Shanghai produce 30,000 tons of garbage
every day, and a major part of this amount is buried, which is a
waste of land because the ground with garbage underneath cannot be
utilized for other purposes.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, January 29, 2003)