Potential of Renewable Energies Generated from Organic Waste in Algeria

Abstract

Since the industrial revolution, the management of various economic sectors was based, exclusively and intensively, on the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources. The principal motivation of this orientation was the availability of these resources, their low costs and the benefits increase. But now, this management strategy has reached its limits because of the low natural reserves in the world and hence their high price. It has, also, causing important environmental damages. This situation can be reflected, in particular, by the scarcity of fossil energy, water, resources mines… And, at the same time, the production of different kinds of pollution which are inducing the imbalance environment especially, the greenhouse emissions, household, waste water… These reasons had obliged the Scientifics, the environmental protection organizations and, at last, the politic deciders the recourse to the sustainable development.

Renewable energies contribute strongly to this new development model for witch waste-to-energy conversion represents an important opportunity. This because of waste availability, their low cost and the necessity of their collection and treatment which characterized this technology as a friendly environment. Until now, in the Mena regions and the most of developing countries, wastes aren’t considered as an energetic resource. However, the adopting of restrictive standards for the waste discharge in natural environments, the implementation of the collection network and the treatment plants for the preservation of the public health and the environmental balance should reverse this trend in favor of the waste-to-energy technologies.

This paper contributes to evaluate the potential of renewable energy production considering urban solid waste, sewage sludge and cow dung which are mobilizable, widely available both of urban and rural areas and increasing continuously in Algeria.

Collected especially in urban areas, household wastes are estimated at more than 15 330 000 tons per year and sewage sludge, removed from wastewater treatment plants, is quantified at more than 350 000 m³ yearly. In rural areas, cow dung isn’t collected but they are locally available where animal husbandry is practiced. At last, the annual organic waste collected, the biogas produced and its energetic conversion are estimated in three different renewable energy systems. This will constitutes a new approach of the waste management for an Algerian sustainable environment.