1. Needed: A National Waste Mission!
CII Symposium on SWM, Hyderabad,
Dec 6, 2011
Narasimhan Santhanam, EAI

2. Waste to Energy – EAI Perspectives
• W2E Domains EAI Has Worked in
– Solid Waste to Energy
– Human Waste to Energy – Sewage & Fecal
– Biomass Waste to Energy
• Comparison of Solid W2E with Other Alternative Energy Sources (solar, wind,
biomass, small hydro)
– Capex & Opex…
– Stakeholders & Dependencies – Govt / Municipalities / Logistics / Society / PCB…
– Technology – gasification, pyrolysis, composting, biomethanation, incineration…
– Society & Environment – activists, civil society, households…
– Knowledge Gaps – Feasibility, technology, logistics, contract structures, buinsess models…
• Takeaways for Solid Waste to Energy
– Most projects have been non-starters
– Different reasons for failures – tech, environment/society, govt. dependencies, economics
– Profitability of projects still in doubt – incentive structure & policies, costs
– Too many uncertainties and too few benchmarks
– What’s Needed is a National Waste Mission, a la National Solar Mission

3. National Waste (to energy) Mission
• Align waste to energy to Indian society’s – not Western society’s –
characteristics
• Create a framework after intense consultation with all stakeholders;
let there be a national framework that serves as reference
• Establish clear benchmarks for technologies, processes and costs
• Establish feed in tariff mechanisms, tipping fees etc., tailored to
different waste streams & technologies
• Adopt grassroots innovations (by NGOs, for instance) already in place
for waste management and waste to energy
• Make waste to energy R&D a priority in premier institutes (IITs and
IISc)

4. About EAI
Aspires to be a catalyst for the Indian renewable energy and cleantech
industry
• Dedicated focus on renewable energy and cleantech
for India – solar, wind, biomass, biofuels, waste to
energy & energy efficiency
• Diversification, feasibility studies, market entry
strategy, business intelligence
• Founded by professionals from IITs and IIMs
• Based out of Chennai
• More from www.eai.in – see also our club, forum,
mailing list…

5. Waste is just value we are too stupid not to use
– Albert Einstein
National Waste Mission = National Value Mission
Narasimhan Santhanam, EAI
narsi@eai.in , www.eai.in