3.3.4 Comparison of the current Korean WTE status to that of Denmark
Denmark’s 29 WTE plants are known to have a very high energy recovery rate, supplying 38
million GJ of energy to the public from 3.7 million tons of waste in 2007 [26]. The locations of the WTE
facilities throughout this world-leading country are shown in Figure 33.
Calculating with data for 2009 from the Yearbook of Energy Statistics, it is discovered that in
Korea, the energy production from MSW accounts for only 0.24% (0.55% for the total waste including
MSW) of the total primary energy supply. This percentage is extremely low by Danish standards as in
Denmark, 20% of the total district heating production generated, and 4.5% of the electricity produced,
was from waste in 2007 [26]. The percentage of energy that is used or lost from operations in the 35
large WTE plants in Korea was calculated and entered in table 9. The high in-plant energy use and loss
explains the low energy supply in Korea from the 35 large plants (16.2 million GJ in 2010), being at about
half of Denmark’s (38 million GJ in 2007).