>Waste Management has quietly become a leader in waste to energy (WtE) and landfill gas to energy (LGTE) technologies. […] The company, using various sources of waste as feedstock, generates up to 550 MW of renewable energy each year – enough to power almost 1.2 million homes. Internal goals call for increasing that figure to 915 MW (2 million homes) by the end of the decade.

Waste to energy

Waste Management’s waste to energy services ignite solid and municipal waste to produce syngas, which is burned to spin turbines and, alas, create renewable electricity. Wheelabrator, the company’s subsidiary, operates 17 WtE facilities in the United States that can convert over 8 million tons of waste into 333 MW each year. That is second only to Covanta, which owns 44 facilities that convert over 20 million tons of waste into 9 million MWh of electricity each year – equivalent to 8% of all renewable energy in the United States.<