Solid Wastes
The regulatory definition of solid waste includes residential trash, wastes generated by restaurants and office buildings, manufacturing companies, wastewater treatment plants, and waste generated by constructing or tearing down buildings and other structures. Most solid wastes from the production of energy are by-products of combustion.
Coal Ash and Gypsum
After combustion of coal and other fuels, some solid by-products remain. In coal-fueled plants, for example, up to 10 percent of the coal volume remains as ash after combustion.
Some of these solids have beneficial uses in products. The remaining solids are managed on plant sites or are collected and removed to designated offsite landfills.
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To reduce the volume of solid waste at our plants, we're making safe use of coal ash in concrete, cement ,and road beds. We're aiming to reuse 50 percent of the coal ash generated by our plants by 2010 — up from 30 percent today — diverting approximately 3.6 million tons from landfills. |
 Click to enlarge and view as PDF. (Online charts updated through 2006.) |
By adding scrubbers - emission control technology that removes sulfur dioxide from plant emissions - we produce gypsum, a reusable by-product. Gypsum can be used in wallboard, cement, and in agriculture. | |
Nuclear Wastes
Nuclear power plants produce two levels of radioactive waste. Nearly all high-level waste is used fuel. Low-level waste includes such things as protective clothing, tools, and equipment that may contain small amounts of radioactive material. Low-level waste can be shipped to a licensed disposal facility or stored at the plant.
Used fuel is handled by remote control and safely stored inside the most highly secured area of the plant in steel-lined, concrete pools filled with water or on the plant property in steel-lined, concrete containers.
Used fuel accumulates at a much lower volume than many people imagine. A thimble-sized nuclear fuel pellet produces the equivalent energy of one ton of coal. An average nuclear plant unit retires about 20 tons of fuel each year which, in volume, could fit in a small room.
Alabama Power and Georgia Power have contracts with the Department of Energy for the permanent disposal of used fuel. The Department of Energy failed to begin disposing of used fuel in 1998 as required by the contracts.
Until the contract is fulfilled, used fuel continues to be stored safely on-site, as prescribed in operating licenses.
Southern Company operates three nuclear power plants, Vogtle, Farley and Hatch. Sufficient pool storage capacity for used fuel is available at Plant Vogtle into 2014, with an on-site dry storage facility to be completed in time to maintain normal fueling operations. At plants Hatch and Farley, on-site dry storage facilities are being used to house spent fuel once it reaches a lower level of radioactivity, and can be expanded to accommodate used fuel through the life of each plant. The casks are constructed of steel-reinforced concrete, proven to safely protect the fuel under extreme conditions such as earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and explosions.
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Hazardous Waste |
 Click to enlarge and view as PDF. (Online charts updated through 2006.) |
Insulating Oil
Substations and other facilities have electrical equipment that contains oil for its insulation properties. These facilities have procedures in place to prevent oil spills. Spill prevention, control, and countermeasures are built into new substations and are being retrofitted on existing facilities. After evaluating almost 2,800 substations, Southern Company identified more than 500 requiring retrofits. More than 170 retrofits are complete; the remainder will be completed within five years.
Office and Metal Recycling
Southern Company recycles paper, cardboard, wood, aluminum cans, and scrap metal locally. Over the past five years in Georgia alone, we have recycled about 3.2 million pounds of paper, 1.4 million pounds of cardboard, 24 million pounds of wood, and 112 million pounds of scrap metal.