Closing the Loop between Waste-to-Energy Technologies: A Holistic Assessment Based on Multiple Criteria

Abstract

This paper puts forward a generic methodological framework to holistically assess WtE technologies based on the PROMETHEE approach. In addition to environmental and economic aspects, the method focuses on large-scale applicability and social preference, thus adopting economic, environmental, social, and technological criteria. Three data sources are selected, namely the scientific literature, a public survey, and an experts’ opinion survey, which is a novel combination with the aim to cover public consensus, technological applicability, and to provide alternative data sources for the economic and environmental criteria, thus enriching the methodology with the input of location specific data. The demonstration of the applicability of the proposed methodology is realized at a national level for the case of Greece. Anaerobic Digestion is shown to be the most preferable choice, recognized for its cost-effectiveness and lower environmental burden to other WtE technologies (i.e., gasification, pyrolysis, incineration). When all criteria are evaluated with equal weights, anaerobic digestion greatly outperforms incineration (net flow 0.833 versus 0.1667), while incineration only becomes the most preferred choice if the social criterion is in high focus (i.e., over 63% weight).