by Jane Regan,
“Garbage
in, garbage out,” or GIGO, is a computer science term meaning
that if the original data is erroneous, even the most
sophisticated computer program will produce erroneous results.
Perhaps unbeknownst to themselves, Haitian officials and the
Haitian people are caught in the middle of a potentially
expensive and risky GIGO scenario with Haiti’s garbage.
A
foreign company that hopes to set up a trash-to-electricity
incinerator in Haiti has misled the Haitian public, and perhaps
Haitian authorities, with what appear to be false claims and
deliberate attempts to avoid answering key questions raised in a
Jan. 22 article by the
investigative journalism partnership Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW).
In a
text sent to Haiti’s daily Le Nouvelliste and published
on Feb. 8 with the title “Le
projet Phoenix précise,” (“The Phoenix Project
Offers Precision”) the Pittsburgh-based
International Electric Power
(IEP) company made claims that largely obscure, rather than
clarify, its Phoenix Project and the criticisms and risks which
surround it.
What is the
Phoenix Project?
The Phoenix
Project is a planned public-private company that would collect
garbage from the capital region and then burn it to allegedly
provide 30 megawatts (MW) of electricity available for sale to
Haiti’s state electricity company. The initial cost of the
venture is about US$250 million, according to IEP, which is
seeking a loan from the U.S. government’s Overseas Private
Investment Corporation (OPIC). Once built – by a Spanish company
previously chosen by IEP, rather than via an open bidding
process – the capital’s garbage would be picked up by public and
private garbage collection entities and brought to the plant,
sorted, and then relevant portions burned. (There is a certain
contradiction in the IEP plan. Efficient sorting of urban
garbage would include the removal and recycling of the very
materials which burn at a higher temperature.)
The
Haitian government would own 10% of the eventual company, and
would receive 50% of the after-tax profits (presumably once the
US$250 million loan has been paid off), according to IEP.
Boucard Waste Management and other Haitian private sector
players are part of the deal.
Some
members of the Haitian government support the project. (However,
a high-level government official involved with solid waste
disposal
rejected the project.) IEP
officials told HGW that authorities have already signed two
memoranda of understanding (MOUs) that commit to making two
payments to the new company for 30 years: one, required, would
be a sum to operate the plant, and another, optional, for any
electricity purchased. The state would also donate land north of
Port-au-Prince. HGW was denied its request to see the MOUs, but
Haiti’s Minister Delegate for Energy Security, René Jean Jumeau,
confirmed that the project “is part of our Action Plan for the
Development of Electricity.”
“We
aim to build factories that will turn trash into energy all over
the country,” he told HGW on Oct. 10, 2012.
The
five-year-old IEP has never built or operated a
“waste-to-energy” (WtE) plant, and according to the company
website, the principal staff members do not have direct
experience with the business either. (Nevertheless, in the Feb.
8 text, IEP claimed its team has “proven expertise in the
collection of solid waste and its transformation into
electricity.”)
The
firm slated to build the plant – Ros Roca of Spain – does have
expertise. It built a giant WtE combustion plant in Mallorca,
Spain. Interestingly, it turns out the Ros Roca plant is too
big. Households on the island of Mallorca do not produce enough
garbage. Therefore, the plant’s owners, who do not include Ros
Roca, are now importing 100,000 tons of garbage per year from
all over Europe to make up for the shortfall, despite the
strong opposition of some
local officials and several citizens groups.
In
Haiti and abroad – with documents, meetings, junkets to Mallorca
for government officials, public relations campaigns and
interviews – IEP has promoted the Phoenix Project as the answer
to both the capital’s garbage problems and the country’s need
for more electricity. The company also claims that the
combustion plant will not cause any environmental or health
dangers, that it will eventually eliminate the practice of
open-air burning of garbage as well as the problem of blocking
drainage canals,” and will create 1,800 “high-quality, skilled
jobs” and also “at least 10,000 jobs,” presumably related to
garbage collection. (The Feb. 8 text lowers the numbers,
claiming 1,600 “well-paying” jobs.)
Disturbing
discoveries, glaring contradictions
In its two-month
investigation, HGW discovered a number of contradictions between
IEP’s various claims and the reality on the ground in Haiti and
in similar, low-income countries.
Based
on the evidence collected, the journalists concluded that
Haiti’s “municipal solid waste,” or “MSW,” would likely not be
able to produce 30 MW of electricity. Journalists also raised
questions about the health and environmental risks associated
with incineration or combustion plants. Finally, journalists
noted that the project would commit the government and people of
Haiti to 30 years of payments to a company mostly controlled by
profit-seeking investors.
HGW
also discovered that the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC),
headed by former President Bill Clinton and former Prime
Minister Jean Max Bellerive (2010 and 2011), twice rejected the
project. Two staffers at the World Bank and the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB) who had seen the Phoenix proposal and
were familiar with the IHRC both confirmed the rejections. One
of them told HGW: “both the World Bank and the IDB studied the
project and both of them rejected it because it would be
terrible for Haiti.”
1 – Haiti’s
waste likely not suited for a combustion plant
On its website
and in its Feb. 8 text, IEP claims that Haiti’s MSW has
the “caloric value” necessary to produce electricity. HGW’s
research found this to be unlikely.
A
2010 study by the U.S.
government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on the
various WtE technologies that would most appropriate for Haiti’s
garbage recommended bio-digestion, not combustion.
NREL
noted that Haiti’s garbage “is estimated to contain between 65%
and 75% organics… Food waste typically does not make a good fuel
or feedstock for combustion or gasification systems. This is
because the waste has high moisture content.”
In
its Feb. 8 text, IEP said that these figures – “between 65% and
75% organics” – were out of date. The company repeated its claim
that “the composition and caloric value [of the capital’s MSW]
exceed what is necessary for producing 30 MW, even in rainy
season,” and also implied to readers that both the NREL and the
United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) agreed.
Contacted in February, neither NREL nor the UN program would
confirm the claim. Both said they are in the process of
producing reports for the Haitian government, which are not yet
complete.
IEP
has also claimed that its own research confirms Haiti’s garbage
would produce the 30 MW. However, as with other issues related
to the project, there is little transparency surrounding the
alleged study, which was conducted by the very firms who stand
to benefit if the project is funded.
HGW
decided to do its own research and discovered that
a 2012 study from the World
Bank, “What a Waste – A Global Review of Waste Management,” says
that for “low income countries,” combustion of waste to produce
electricity is “not common” and “generally not successful
because of high capital, technical, and operation cost, high
moisture content in the waste, and high percentage of inerts.”
The
study noted that low-income countries typically have garbage
that is about 64% organic, a figure only slightly lower than the
65% to 75% cited in the 2010 NREL report.
2 –
Environmental Risks
In its Feb. 8
text, IEP sniped that anyone raising questions about the risks
associated with incineration have “a biased opinion.”
Incineration or combustion plants today are clearly cleaner than
in the past, but only if expensive technology is used and only
if they are continually subjected to rigorous and expensive
monitoring. The HGW article highlighted some of the risks
associated with incineration and speculated that a government
which fails to enforce its most simple, low-tech environmental
regulations – like one banning tree-cutting or another banning
the use of Styrofoam food containers – would not be able to
enforce the kinds of rules countries like Denmark and Germany
uphold.
IEP
also claimed that “industrial incineration is more and more
popular in European Union countries.”
While
it is true that
there are hundreds of WtE combustion
plants in Europe, as well as in the US, it is not
true that they are becoming “more and more popular” there.
In 2007, the European Parliament
voted to prioritize recycling
over incineration, and in 2011, the European Commission
published a “Roadmap
to a Resource Efficient Europe” which says that by
2020, there should be no incineration of any garbage that could
be turned into compost or recycled.
Finally, IEP said that its project would be cleaner than the
open-air garbage burning common across Haiti. While that might
be true, there are many other ways to stop open-air burning,
including passing and enforcing a law and/or developing a
comprehensive waste management plan that includes composting
and/or biodigestion and/or landfills.
There
are many other environmental considerations that need to be
studied before approving or rejecting a WtE combustion plant,
including the fact that for many materials, burning produces
more greenhouse gas emissions than would recycling.
3 – Costs
One of the risks
raised by HGW journalists is the financial commitment entailed.
IEP used an economic argument of its own, claiming that the
Phoenix Project would produce “cheap energy.”
A
2010 report from the U.S. Department of Energy says just the
opposite. Studying the “capital costs” and “operating costs” for
various electricity-generation plants or methods, including what
it calls “MSW plants” (garbage combustion plants), wind farms,
solar farms, and biodigestion, the “Updated
Capital Cost Estimates for Electricity Generation”
states that, contrary to IEP’s claims, MSW plants are one of the
most expensive installations to build and operate when compared
with other technologies.
Building a 50 MW plant, like the Phoenix Project but a little
larger, would cost US$8,232 (2010 dollars) for each kilowatt
(kW) of capacity, with fixed operating costs at US$376 (2010
dollars) per kW.
In
stark contrast, a 50 MW “bubbling fluidized bed” biomass
installation would cost US$4,755 (2010 dollars) for each kW of
capacity, and have fixed operating costs of about $100 (2010
dollars) per kW.
Finally, a 150 MW solar photovoltaic installation would cost
US$4,755 (2010 dollars) per kW to set up and have only about
US$17 (2010 dollars) of fixed operating costs per kW.
GIGO and
Haiti’s garbage
HGW cannot claim
complete expertise in the area of trash-to-energy technologies.
But the GIGO axiom clearly applies to the Phoenix project. With
incomplete and erroneous data, the Haitian state and the Haitian
people are at risk of making a costly error.
The
studies cited above prove, irrefutably, that the Phoenix Project
is certainly not the only “solution” to the country’s garbage
and energy challenges. It is, in fact, probably the most
risk-laden and expensive choice. For countries like Haiti, the
World Bank and others usually recommend recycling and “recovery”
via composting or via
biodigestion, which produces
both energy (methane that can be burned) and “soil amendment”
(nutrients that can be added to the soil).
The
precedent being set in Mallorca offers another reason for pause.
Perhaps the Phoenix Project plant is being built with foreign
garbage in mind? Haiti already had a close call with imported
trash from IEP’s home state, Pennsylvania.
In
1988, a barge named Khian Sea anchored off Gonaïves and
unloaded some 4,000 tons of its 15,000-ton toxic cargo: ash from
a City of Philadelphia incinerator. Ten years of tireless
advocacy by citizens groups and courageous reporting from
Radio Haïti Inter and other journalists finally succeeded in
forcing the city of Philadelphia and its contractors to reload
its toxic cargo. The Khian Sea captain
dumped the ash in the middle
of the Indian and Atlantic oceans. The
IPS and
Counterpunch have also
covered this history.
Without a complete understanding of all the facts, the data, the
costs and the risks surrounding various methods for dealing with
its municipal solid waste and its energy challenges, the Haitian
government risks signing the state and the taxpayers up for a
very costly deal. Government authorities and the agencies
advising it need to put all their cards on the table, reveal all
possible conflicts of interest in the project, and the NREL and
UNEP need to publish their results sooner rather than later.
Jane Regan is the coordinator of Haiti Grassroots Watch.
Haiti Grassroots Watch
is a partnership of
AlterPresse,
the
Society of
the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS),
the
Network of
Women Community Radio Broadcasters (REFRAKA),
community radio stations from the Association of Haitian
Community Media and students from the Journalism Laboratory at
the State University of Haiti. |