History of Gasification of Municipal Solid Waste through the eyes of Mr. Hakan Rylander

This is an excerpt from Let's speak about Waste To Energy..., an interview conducted by Antonis Mavropoulos and published on his Global View of Waste Management Blog****

Mr. Hakan Rylander, CEO Sysav Company Group

Mr. Hakan Rylander is a former President of International Solid Waste Association (ISWA)  and the current CEO of the SYSAV Company Group. He is one of the most experienced WtE engineers I know, involved in all different phases and aspects of a WtE facility. SYSAV is a role model company in WtE.  Mr. Hakan has held many other key-positions e.g. Chairman of the ISWA WtE Working Group, Swedish Representative in the Nordic Association of Waste Management, Chairman of the Scania Society of Engineers. Currently Hakan is also running the R&D Committee of Avfall Sverige.

Antonis Mavropoulos: What can we expect from the (Waste-to-Energy, WTE) technology in terms of improvements?

Hakan Rylander: - to reduce and minimize the amount of bottom ash. (More here)
- to develop a safe and environmentally correct way of final handling of the flue gas cleaning residues and to recover as much as technical and economically possible of the metal content in these residues and in the bottom ash (More here)
- to increase the electrical efficiency in the waste-to-energy plants. (More here)

About the History of Developing Gasification Technology for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)

Last but not least, in a recent discussion I heard, probably for the 100th time in last two years, that incineration is dead and that gasification and plasma pyrolysis will soon substitute all incineration plants. What is the current status of those technologies? Are they applicable for Mixed MSW? Are there commercial applications and operational experiences? After all,  is it something we can trust?

Antonis: A lot of people say they are promising and they are more environmental friendly than incineration...?

Hakan: Well,