The utilization of fossil fuels has been practice for many years as a source of energy, this utilization produce greenhouse gases such as CO2, SO2, NOx and other pollutants which increase global warming and acid rain. The fossil fuel resources are depleting while the consumption is increasing. This environmental effects and fossil depletion necessitates the effort in invention of alternative source of clean and renewable energy [1].
Fossil fuel is coming from buried underground biomass deposits contains carbon which was locked for about 200 million years ago from the atmosphere. When combustion of fossil fuels occur the carbon react with oxygen to form CO2 and releases to the atmosphere. The global concentration of CO2 by May 2014 was 401.88 ppm. This is higher than the upper safety limit for atmospheric CO2 which is 350 ppm [2]. The CO2 released from combustion of fossil fuels add up to the CO2 concentration of atmosphere. The CO2 in the atmosphere infuse heat radiating from the surface that would leak into space and radiate it back to the surface, thus raising the global surface temperature [3, 4].
The sustainable development and economic growth poses a big challenge to environment such as greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption and massive waste generation [5]. This economic development, enhance the growth in population, urbanization and industrialization and so increase the energy demand [6]. The prosperity and high quality of human life caused by these developments has also increase per capita solid waste and the rate of municipal solid waste generated from country to countries [7].
Satisfying energy demand through the use of renewable energy sources is the main agenda nowadays because of the fossil fuel depletion and environmental issues. Municipal solid waste is the result of human activities which if an appropriate management system isn’t used it may well lead to environmental pollution and endanger mankind’s health. The massive municipal solid waste generations increases can be taken as an opportunity as source of energy for power generation or industrial use. Municipal solid wastes in developing countries are composed by a big portion of biomass materials such as food, paper and wood waste. The non-recyclable combustible materials from municipal solid waste can be used for energy recovery as they can reduce the utilization of fossil fuels thus assisting in minimizing global warming [8]. The studies show that the recovering energy from municipal solid waste can be a better way of managing environment from pollution caused by municipal solid waste disposal Technologies [9]. The emission of CO2 coming from biogenic combustion of municipal solid waste is renewable and reduce the global warming because it completes the carbon cycle as it does in biomass [10, 11].
The main objective of this paper is to study the potential of municipal solid waste as source of renewable energy. The analysis of generation capacity and composition of Municipal solid waste will be main focus to establish the amount of energy that can be recovered from Municipal solid waste.