Waste-to-energy plants, the case of Brescia and the new geothermal frontiers

Two cities, Milan and Brescia, two waste-to-energy plants, two parallel stories that at a certain point intertwine, and an emblematic case of waste management with an undertone of economic and political competition around the “garbage” issue, and the issue that today divides coalitions across the board: energy. And if, in Rome, the word “waste-to-energy plant” evokes the project for the Santa Palomba plant (which the Democratic mayor Roberto Gualtieri strongly supported and which is now in the start-up phase), and if in other Italian cities, from Liguria to Sicily to Tuscany to Piedmont, the same term elicits “noes” from the Five Star Movement and a part of the Democratic Party (which wants to maintain the alliance with the M5S), between Milan and Brescia a small saga is being played out – and not just today – that leads, through a thousand streams, to the question: what will be the real battle of the future in terms of energy and the environment in urban areas?

Meanwhile, the facts: the waste-to-energy plant in Brescia began operating in 1998. The one in Milan, “Silla 2”, has been operational since 2001. The Democratic Party, which in some cities does not hide its opposition to this type of plant, in Brescia not only approves them, but has been in favor of a possible expansion in recent years. The M5S, on the other hand, has remained faithful to its usual pro-“reuse and recycling” (and no incinerators) position. But here the obvious controversy ends, and the underground one begins, also linked to the balance of power between Brescia and Milan, in this case unbalanced in favor of the smaller but more efficient city from the point of view of waste disposal. Background: it is 1998, and under the gaze of the mythological (in the Lombard town) engineer Renzo Capra, manager and president of Asm, the municipal services company of Brescia, nicknamed by his fellow citizens "the Stalinist" for his methods and nostalgia, the new waste-to-energy plant sees the light: it is a plant with a treatment capacity at full capacity of 730,000 tons, oversized compared to the production of otherwise non-recyclable waste of the city of Brescia.

“Thanks to the main by-product of waste-to-energy, namely the cooling water from the chimney,” explains Giuseppe Sant'Agostino, a Milanese entrepreneur and expert in energy and environmental issues, “the forced transition to district heating is imposed on the city of Brescia: in this phase of the technology, the inefficient district heating technology is environmentally superior to direct combustion boilers, especially diesel ones, so Brescia is healthier with this transition.”

Milan, on the other hand, in 2001, built with Aem the aforementioned “Silla 2”, with a capacity of 500,000 tons. The smaller capacity does not allow for the imposition of district heating, except for the neighboring public housing neighborhoods. In 2008, the merger between Asm and Aem into A2A took place, and Aem brought with it Amsa, a company that controls the waste-to-energy plant — but the shareholding in the new company is equal between Milan and Brescia, despite the different size of the two cities, with a proportion that has remained until today, after the listing and placing on the market of 49 percent of the shares. In the double game, energy and waste, with a subsidiary now regulated by market laws, both municipalities have moved. But while Brescia was already saturated on the side of thermal energy supply, in Milan the municipality has stipulated an agreement with A2A for the exclusive use of the subsoil in district heating networks. The same thing for waste treatment. The case, seen from a national perspective, pushes us to look beyond the petty controversy that rages elsewhere around waste-to-energy plants.

D'Agostino says: "The most interesting aspect of the waste-to-energy plants in Lombardy is not their undoubted usefulness and healthiness compared to the landfill system, but the less visible issue relating to the use of the main by-product, namely the heat generated by the cooling of the chimneys, the control of which generates a monopoly only recently priced by Arera, which ends up guaranteeing a privileged position to a private company, however participated - consequently it no longer responds to the logic of public utility while it conditions the choices of the administrations". The Brescia case, in short, prefigures possible future battles across coalitions, but also speaks of a difficult transition towards renewables. In the meantime, and not by chance, Rome, with its new waste-to-energy plant, is now very interested in geothermal energy.

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