American Journal of Energy Engineering 2015; 3(2): 11-15 Published online March 19, 2015 (http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ajee) doi: 10.11648/j.ajee.20150302.11 ISSN: 2329-1648 (Print); ISSN: 2329-163X (Online) Economic Analysis of Solid Waste Treatment Plants Using Pyrolysis Huseyin M. Cekirge 1 , Omar K. M. Ouda 2 , Ammar Elhassan 3 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar, KSA 2 Department of Civil Engineering, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar, KSA 3 Department of Information Technology, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar, KSA Email address: hmcekirge@usa.net (H. M. Cekirge), oouda@pmu.edu.sa (O. K. M. Ouda), aelhassan@pmu.edu.sa (A.Elhassan) To cite this article: Huseyin M. Cekirge, Omar K. M. Ouda, Ammar Elhassan. Economic Analysis of Solid Waste Treatment Plants Using Pyrolysis. American Journal of Energy Engineering. Vol. 3, No. 2, 2015, pp. 11-15. doi: 10.11648/j.ajee.20150302.11 Abstract: Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management is a chronic environmental and economic problem in urban areas worldwide and more specifically in developing countries. Waste-to-Energy (WTE) technologies show a great potential to convert this problem to a revenue source. Pyrolysis is a promising technology and is currently utilized in many regions of the world for MSW disposal and energy generation. The economic value of pyrolysis has been insufficiently evaluated. This paper introduces and discusses the economic value of pyrolysis as MSW management disposal method and energy source. The return period of investments is considered for various pricing policies with respect to end product of process. Hypotheses and conclusions of the model works are briefly reported. Keywords: Waste to Energy, Pyrolysis, Municipal Solid Waste Management 1. Introduction Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) refers to domestic solid waste such as food scraps, paper, cardboard, plastics, clothing, glass, metals, wood, street sweepings, landscape and tree trimmings and general wastes from parks and other recreational areas. The world urban areas generated about 1.3 billion tons of solid waste in 2012. This volume is expected to increase to 2.2 billion tons by 2025. Waste generation rates will more than double over the next twenty years in developing countries. Globally, solid waste management costs will increase from today’s annual US $ 205.4 billion to about US $ 375.5 billion in 2025. Cost increases will be most severe in developing countries such as Pakistan [1, 2]. In developing countries, urban MSW is usually a city’s single largest budgetary item and it can be a valuable source of biomass, recycled materials, energy and revenue if properly and wisely managed. Several energy recovery or waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies such as pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion (AD), incineration and refused derived fuel (RDF) have been developed in order to generate energy and value-added products in the form of electricity, transportation fuels, heat, fertilizers and chemicals[3,4]. Studies show that WTE can contribute substantially to energy demand especially in heavily populated urban areas [5-13]. Additionally, the WTE environmental value is quite significant with several factors including, but not limited to, greenhouse gas emission reduction, energy saving, landfill area saving, and soil and groundwater protections [14-16]. Pyrolysis is a promising technology and is currently utilized in many regions of the world for MSW disposal and energy generation. The economic value of pyrolysis has been insufficiently evaluated. This paper introduces and discusses the economic value of pyrolysis as MSW management disposal method and energy source. Fast and slow pyrolyses are considered as thermal processes, essential final products are gases, liquid fuel and electricity. Models are proposed to cover and analyze all these products. In these models fast pyrolysis and its products pyrolysis oil is not considered. The paper has three sections: 1) Estimation of income from solid waste 2) Investment calculations 3) Maintenance costs The estimations were made by considering realistic input values and the return periods for each element were calculated. The models can be used with multi product