Venice (Italy)
Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, Venice, Italy
The production of energy from alternative sources and its impact on climate change are among the main strategic tools implicated in the sustainable development of our society. Numerous types of biomass and wastes contribute towards the production of energy and reduction in the use of fossil fuels by means of biological, chemical and thermal processes. Existing biomass and waste to energy technologies are currently undergoing rapid development. Despite growing interest in the use of these technologies, in many countries their implementation remains limited.
The aim of the Venice 2018 Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste is to focus on the advances made in the application of technologies for energy recovery from biomass and waste and to encourage discussion in these fields. Over 500 scientists and operators from approximately 57 different countries attended the previous edition of the Symposium.
RINA is taking part in Venice 2018 both with a paper (the authors are M. Compagnino, P. Rentocchini and C. Valentini) included in the Symposium proceedings and a speech during Session B4 "Pyrolisis and gasification": it will be held on October 16 from 9.00 to 10.40 am at the Oratorio della Croce and our speaker will be Marco Compagnino. The topic is “Exhausted Tyres: Material and Energy Recovery Through Pyrolysis” and it’s based on RINA recent experience from an initiative proposed in Northern Italy for the re-use of exhausted tyres to produce combustible oils, carbon char and steel.
Waste recycling is becoming an urgent issue in order to reduce both wastes to disposal and consumption of valuable raw materials. Potential solutions should definitely be assessed by comparing different applicable technologies in order to identify – case by case – the most technically suitable and environmentally sustainable ones.
The mentioned initiative has to be absolutely considered an interesting case study because:
• on one hand, it represents an innovative and sustainable solution for the management of significant amount of wastes (10% of the annual national production of exhausted tyres) generating sustainable impacts both on physical and biological components and allowing to differentiate the re-use of exhausted tyres producing not only energy (thermal and electrical), as is common, but also goods to be put on the market (combustible oils, carbon char and steel);
• on the other hand, it faced a very strong local opposition (actually based on a well spread NIMBY syndrome as well as on a not adequate technical knowledge of the project and its impacts) which finally led the competent authorities to stop the permitting path of the project.
It is nevertheless worth noting that the reasons for the rejection of the initiative have in no way undermined the goodness of the technical and process design solutions that are at the basis of the project. What above could be therefore considered as not just the final stop to this technical approach, but as a new starting point.
Once again, RINA is actively engaged in promoting innovative initiatives towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. In particular:
• SDG 9 - industry innovation and infrastructure aiming at technological progress as foundation of efforts to achieve environmental objectives, such as increased resource and energy efficiency;
• SDG 12 - responsible consumption and production aiming at “doing more and better with less” by reducing resource use, degradation and pollution, and at achieving the environmentally sound management of chemicals and wastes throughout their life cycle.
Event official website: https://www.venicesymposium.it/
