Chad Deskins
11/17/2011
ETI 1931
Biomass
Biomass can be garbage, wood chips, sugar-cane remnants or grass. Almost all the
renewable-energy power in Florida comes from biomass, including three plants in Miami-Dade
and Broward. Biomass produces 1,100 megawa*s of power for Florida, according to a recent
study by Navigant Consultants. About half of that comes from 11 waste-to-energy plants that
process local garbage and trash and the other half is the le-overs from .mber and sugar cane
industries.
Miami Dade’s yard waste is used to produce 77megawa* biomass facility. The County’s
Resources Recovery Facility is one of the most technologically advanced waste-to-energy
facili.es in the world, while featuring a state-of-art air quality control system. More than 1.2
million tons of waste is processed annually, with 270,000 tons of the material being processed
into a biomass fuel for export out of Miami-Dade County. The RRF is supported by three County–
owned and operated land3lls and three solid waste transfer sta.ons. While receiving waste
from these facili.es, they will separate all aluminum and ferrous metals, from the garbage, to
be sold to recycling plants. The garbage is then shredded and used to generate electricity. Their
process produces a biomass fuel which is used on site to supplement the refuse derived
fuel. The remaining biomass fuel is sold to cogenera.on facili.es in Central Florida. The ash
product resul.ng from the waste-to-energy process is 10% of the original waste material
delivered to the plant. This material is placed in an ash land3ll located adjacent to the plant. The
power that is sold goes to Progress Energy Corpora.on and is suffcient to operate the plant and
to supply the electricity of approximately 40,000 homes.
Broward County has two biomass facili.es. The south waste-to-energy facility provides
reliable, environmentally safe disposal of public solid waste for Broward County Florida, while
genera.ng clean, renewable electricity to sale to local u.lity. Designed, constructed, owned and
operated by Wheelabrator. They process up to 2,250 tons per day of public solid waste. They
Chad Deskins
11/17/2011
ETI 1931
have an electric genera.ng capacity of 66,000 kilowa*s; the equivalent of supplying the
electrical needs of 38,000 Florida homes. The north waste-to-energy facility, a li*le larger,
provides up to 2,250 tons per day of public solid waste. They also have the electric genera.ng
capacity of 68,000 kilowa*s; the equivalent of supplying the electrical needs of 39,000 Florida
homes. Wheelabrator’s waste-to-energy facili.es today represent state-of-the-art, modern
materials handling, trash combus.on, refuse boiler design, air quality control, electric power
genera.on and ash residue recycling and management systems. In all 3ve independent power
plants they have the genera.ng capacity to produce 227 megawa*s of clean energy using a
variety of waste fuels including wood waste, waste .res and waste coal. The plant operates as
follows, the soil waste is driven into storage, were from there it goes into a hopper, that will be
evenly distributed on a mul.level furnace boiler unit. It then burns the soils, separa.ng metals
