NMS Students Learn How One Company Creates Energy-From-Waste

By Eliza Hallabeck

Michael Tallon and his daughter Cailee stood in front of one of social studies teacher Sue Kurkul’s classes at Newtown Middle School on Friday, November 7, and asked the students where their trash goes.

“In a can right? In a truck right?” Mr Tallon said. “I work for Covanta Energy. And what we do is, we burn trash and we make energy from that trash.”

 Cailee asked her father to speak to her cluster about energy as part of the learning about the process of elections, according to Ms Kurkul. Energy was one of the many topics the presidential candidates were focused on for this election, and Mr Tallon brought an animated explanation of how the process at Covanta Energy converts waste to energy.

According to Covanta Energy, energy-from-waste (EFW), also called waste-to-energy, is a process that takes municipal solid waste and transfers it through combustion chambers that reduce the volume of the waste to ten percent of its original size by heating it. Water in steal tubes around the combustion chambers heats up, and the water is turned to steam. From there the steam is sent through a turbine that generates electricity.

During the process of converting the waste into energy Mr Tallon said, Covanta Energy collects enough metal to be reused that 257 electric cars could be made each year.

Mr Tallon said he is a control room operator at the Bristol facility, and trash from Newtown residents is either brought to the Bridgeport or Lisbon facility.

“We’re an international company,” Mr Tallon said.

More than 30 EFW facilities are owned and operated by Covanta Energy in the United States and in other countries, according to Covanta Energy.

Mr Tallon said the company that originally designed EFW plants was from Germany, and they started this process during the 1920s.

Students were encouraged to ask Mr Tallon questions during his presentation, and each student who participated during the class period received a hard hat with the company’s name and logo on it.

“I’ve been working at Covanta for five years,” said Mr Tallon.

One student asked Mr Tallon where energy goes once it is created.

“We’re using the energy here right now,” said Mr Tallon. “Electricity is electricity.”

He explained that it is the company’s job to make sure there is enough energy waiting to power an light bulb waiting when someone flips on a switch.

Mr Tallon then said that once the steam is used to create electricity, it is cooled down in order to be reused. Also, he said, all steam that is released by Covanta Energy is monitored and processed through multiple levels of filters, because the company has strict laws about what it can release.

“Whatever the state levels are, we’re tougher,” Mr Tallon said referring to the levels that control what can be released from a company into the environment.

Once the waste has been reduced to ten percent of its original size, the ash is mixed with lime to control the pH levels, and it will taken to a special landfill, Mr Tallon said.

According to the company, the process of turning waste into energy creates fewer landfills, renewable energy, and fewer greenhouse gases.

Mr Tallon said Covanta Energy marked 250 million tons of waste being processed as energy this year, and that means 250 million tons of carbon that would have been released by the waste was offset. According to the company, every ton of waste processed produces the same amount of energy as one barrel of oil or a quarter ton of coal.

Mr Tallon also said the company is pro-recycling.

“One thing I noticed,” Ms Kurkul said about the presentation, “was kids who never raise their hands, raised their hands today.”

Every student in the cluster also wrote a thank you note for Mr Tallon, Ms Kurkul said.