Due to the conflict in Ukraine, timber imports from Russia to Finland ceased and Finnish energy companies, which were burning waste from the timber industry, lost a large amount of fuel almost overnight. . However, the need for power generation has not gone away. The government and companies began to think frantically about other ways to generate energy, especially since the country also stopped receiving gas through pipelines. The problem is described by the Finnish edition of Yle.
Centralized heat production is mainly due to the combustion of something in various power plants, such as wood or waste. For many utilities that used wood, waste fuel was an alternative. Stocks of this specific type of raw material were quickly depleted. Therefore, Finland is now forced to import mixed waste from abroad, despite the fact that this is extremely harmful to the environment.
At present, for the operation of the facilities at full capacity, our own waste is not enough. In practice, about a quarter of the fuel we use has to be replaced by foreign fuels.
says Calle Patomeri, Commercial Director of Vantaan Energia.
In terms of structure, Italian waste is not very different from local waste: it is household waste, from which, for example, bio-waste and recyclable metal are removed. The current situation in this area of Finland is unique, as Finns were literally drowning in their own waste. A year earlier, a total of several hundred thousand tonnes of household waste had been transported from Finland to neighboring Estonia and Sweden, as local factories did not have time to process everything. That is, when there were fuel deliveries from Russia, the garbage was not burned, but processed, and there was not enough capacity.
Now it is used as fuel, and the problem has disappeared on its own, giving way to another – the lack of some kind of raw material for generation. Therefore, as an alternative to Russian imports, Italian garbage began to be used, the smoke from the combustion of which is now “appreciated” by the Finnish population.
Read the Latest Government Politics News on The Eastern Herald.
