Perspectives, from both supporters and critics
H-Power
Covanta Honolulu, or the H-POWER facility, is located in Kapolei on O‘ahu and began operation in 1990. Up to 3,000 tons a day of municipal solid waste from around O‘ahu is incinerated, and turned into electricity that is sold to HECO, producing enough power to meet roughly 7 percent (from 2008 to 2016) of the island’s energy needs.
The Pluses (+)
“For every ton of trash burned, H-POWER produces the same amount of electricity as one barrel of oil,” explains Michael O’Keefe, Executive Assistant II at the City and County of Honolulu’s Dept. of Environmental Services. “The argument in favor is that burning the trash avoids the necessity of burning fossil fuels. We understand that burning trash also produces carbon dioxide and ash, and the latter has to go into a landfill. On the other hand, the market for recycling in Hawai‘i is very challenging and the vast majority needs to be shipped to distant overseas markets—and that burns fossil fuels to get there.”
The State counts the electricity generated at H-POWER towards its Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards goal (40 percent renewable energy by 2030), in the same category as solar panels, biofuels, wind, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass. During the process, metals, such as aluminum, are extracted for recycling. In 2017, that amounted to 22,000 tons, according to the Aloha+ Challenge Dashboard, which also notes that the same year, 701,068 tons were converted from municipal solid waste into energy. H-POWER reduces the weight of waste by 75 percent and the volume of waste by 90 percent.
The Minuses (-)
The City has a quota of trash to provide, so there’s an incentive to burn as much as possible. When the City fails to deliver a guaranteed tonnage of 800,000 tons per year it must pay the H-POWER contractor (Covanta) for any lost electrical revenues. The Office of the City Auditor estimated the City owed the contractor between $1 million to $2 million dollars annually for lost electrical revenues.
There are other concerns. Oil needs to be added to counteract the cooling effect of wet waste, there’s an expense to keep burners running, carbon and other pollutants are entering the air—and lost potential, because once materials are incinerated, those resources are forever lost.
“The data shows that H-POWER emits two times more greenhouse gas emissions than our largest oil generating plant (Kahe Power Plant, West O‘ahu),” says Nicole Chatterson, the director of Zero Waste O‘ahu and the Living Lab Coordinator in the UH System Office of Sustainability. She did her thesis on H-POWER.
Photos courtesy of Rafael Bergstrom, Olivier Koenig, Pixabay, Li Yang on Unsplash.