Chapter 5 - Dissertation Conclusion

5.1 Background

This chapter highlights the crux of the study by briefly describing objectives and literature survey. Feasibility of the proposed plant is then discussed which leads to the limitations and difficulties of the study. At the end some recommendations for future work are provided in a brief. Some of the suggestion to improve and highlight the renewable energy generation techniques are also part of the chapter.

5.2 Literature Review, Survey and Interviews

A Valorga process AD plant, with capacity of 0.8 tones food waste per day, is proposed to be established in the city of Tripoli. This plant can assist the national grid in meeting the rising demands of electricity in Tripoli and on the outskirts. Public opinion about establishing such a plant is taken by conducting a survey.

The results of the survey suggest that the people of Tripoli understand the need of a WTE plant and ensure their cooperation for the separate household food waste if provided with the containers by the municipal authorities.

The food waste to energy generation plant provides a solution for both household food waste management in Tripoli and generating adequate amount of electricity to meet the rising demand.

An informal session of interviews has been conducted with the experts from Energy Agency of Libya. The opinion and observation based data collection in done in order to adequately opt the interpretivist approach of research. All five respondents recommended the idea of establishing an AD plant in Tripoli-Libya.

The plant location selected in the research has also been validated by their comments and suggestion as appropriate location for establishing a plant. The idea of energy generation using sustainable methods is the main point they’ve endorsed. The research provide solution for both; waste management in Tripoli and introduction of sustainable energy generation method in Libya, they said.

5.3 Feasibility of the Proposed System

A detailed feasibly study is conducted including technical details such as amount of biogas generation, plant type, equipment sizing, and proposed location for the plant. Initial finances, operation and management cost of the proposed AD plant are estimated in the financial analysis of the proposed plant.

Life cycle assessment is compared with the food waste management to evaluate the environmental effects of the plant. The analysis suggests that the proposed AD plant is economically, technically and ecologically feasible to establish on 3rd Ring Road in Tripoli.

5.4 Limitations and Difficulties

Some of the limitations and difficulties involved in the process of digestion or establishing a digestion plant are listed as follows;

1. Since many WTE technologies are designed to handle mixed type to food waste such as solid waste and municipal waste etc. Running the plant with specifically food waste is difficult as food waste makes comparatively less amount than MSW as a whole.

2. Some other WTE challenges include high capital cost, waste-gas cleanup, regulatory hurdles, and conversion efficiency.

3. Since domestic utilization of generated electricity is a primary objective, it adds a limitation where even distribution of electricity distribution in domestic buildings is not possible if the plant is located outside the residential area. This issue can be resolved by centralizing a substation for the proper transmission and distribution.

4. Since accuracy of the estimated analysis depends entirely on the data, missing fields effect the accuracy of the estimations.

5. Since survey is conducted among non-technical people and represents their views, no amount of primary data is available that accurately estimates the energy generation from amount of food or biogas generation. The calculations of estimation of biogas yield and energy generation are based on the equations taken from secondary resources thus can be erroneous.

5.5 Future Work

This study is conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of establishing a large scale plant to provide an alternative and renewable energy solution. The whole idea is applicable and implementable in the proposed area.

Instead, in the future, the idea can be evaluated for the individual high-rise buildings to make them self-sufficient in energy demand and supply and to reduce the load on nation electricity grid.

A cross-national study involving cost-benefit analysis of family-sized digesters in Tripoli is yet to analyze in order to predict the future of biogas technology in Libya. Information about government subsidy on renewable energy generation plants in Tripoli is important but unknown yet.

This study revolves around the utilization of food waste collected from residential buildings only. Although hotels, restaurants, and canteens can also provide a considerably high amount of food waste and it is relatively easy for them to collect it separately. Thus further work can be based on the food waste collection from the food consumption areas.

It is important to remember that there is no need to restate the research objectives in the conclusion. Your statements should incorporate answers to research questions without you having to repeat those questions.

Here is another example of dissertation conclusion.