PCLM-D-22-00078

Waste incinerators undermine clean energy goals

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Tangri,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 05 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Deepak Kumar, Pursuing Post-Doc, PhD, MSc, B.Tech

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Journal: PLOS Climate

Manuscript Reference: PCLM-D-22-00078

Full Title: Waste incinerators undermine clean energy goals

This study highlights the prominent role of MSW incinerators in perpetuating environmental injustice through local air pollution impacts and recommends closures of MSW incinerators that would result in both a cleaner electric grid and less air pollution. Based on a detained technical evaluation of MSW incineration plants in U.S. the results of this study reinforce the growing notion that MSW incineration proposals incompatible with net-zero emissions and recycling targets. I find this article timely and relevant. In addition, the manuscript is well articulated. I have listed below my comments that may help to further improve the manuscript and its readability.

1. L215, Eq. 2: You have mentioned Fg,n is the national median emissions factor for gas g from natural gas plants. Does “n” refer to the natural gas plants?

2. L222: You have mentioned “the use of 100-year GWPs” however, it is not clear which GWP100 values (i.e., IPCC/AR4, AR5 or AR6) are taken into account for this analysis?

3. L228-230: You have mentioned that “for per unit of electricity produced, incinerators emit 1.7 times as much GHGs, 4.8 times as much NOx but only 0.4 times as much SO2 as coal, the next most polluting fuel. What is the baseline assumption for NOx and SO2 control – 100% SCR/SNCR for NOx control and 100% FGD control in coal thermal power plants? It would be nice to add a sentence here on the existing controls in the power plants.

4. L228-230: I think the emission of PM2.5 as primary particles from a state-of-the-art municipal solid waste incinerator will be lower. What about primary PM2.5 emissions within this study that is associated with severe health impacts? Are they considered under non-greenhouse gases?

5. L262-263: The reason for the excess emissions of gases in 2018 for every incinerator is not clear unless you mention the scenario here.

6. L269-270: It is mentioned that the Figure 3 shows the excess GHG emissions from incinerators in 2018 by state for three electricity replacement scenarios: a) 100% replacement; b) 50% replacement; and c) 0%. However, the figure shows excess emissions from fossil CO2, CH4 and N2O, and biogenic CO2. I think excess emissions are shown only for one scenario. Do I understand correctly?

7. L328-330: Are there specific reuse and recycling targets at the national level? For example, the 2020 EU circular economy action plan aims to halve the quantity of municipal waste not recycled or prepared for reuse by 2030, while all EU Member States must recycle or prepare for reuse at least 60% of their municipal waste by 2030.

8. It would be relevant to point out the impact on employment that may be relevant to the policy makers, as MSW incineration prevents green job growth - reuse and recycling alone generate more jobs than the waste disposal sector.

9. Explain acronyms used in this study. For example, L257: NPCC, L258: SPP.

Reviewer #2: The paper is well written. All the sections contain necessary details to support the study. The author is encouraged to reduce the pages so that it will be more impressive for the readers. As we know, Incinerators are the most emissions-intensive form of generating electricity, his research is more than good

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For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Pallav Purohit

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-22-00078R1

Waste incinerators undermine clean energy goals

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Tangri,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 08 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Deepak Kumar, Pursuing Post-Doc, PhD, MSc, B.Tech

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please send a completed 'Competing Interests' statement, including any COIs declared by your co-authors. If you have no competing interests to declare, please state "The authors have declared that no competing interests exist". Otherwise please declare all competing interests beginning with the statement "I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests:"

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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Reviewers' comments:

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

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PCLM-D-22-00078R2

Waste incinerators undermine clean energy goals

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Tangri,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 22 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Laurence L Delina

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #3: Partly

Reviewer #4: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #3: Although garbage incinerators generate pollution and receive subsidies, can we say that garbage incinerators undermine the goal of clean energy? The author should give a better explanation logically.

If we want to achieve the goal of clean energy, we should mainly focus on how to achieve decarbonization of the power grid. What are the ways to decarbonize the power grid. What is the relationship between these methods and garbage incinerators?

Now the application of artificial intelligence to solve environmental pollution has become a new hotspot, such as: Floating pollutant image target extraction algorithm based on immune extremum region. It has a good reference significance. Can the author use AI methods to analyze the decarburization and clean energy of power grid?

Reviewer #4: This reviewer has not been a part of the first round of review for this paper. However, I have gone through the comments and questions of reviewer 1 and 2 for this paper, which the author has addressed comprehensively. I found that I had the same questions as reviewer 1 which were clarified. The financial disclosure has been clearly stated. I accept the paper as is, for publication in a timely manner.

This reviewer just has a minor comment for the author's consideration in the abstract: While this reviewer agrees that there is some form of environmental injustice for local incineration impacts, this reviewer would advise against introducing this term before presenting the conclusion of the study. It would be best if the reader can come to the conclusion themselves. The abstract and introductory parts come off as prescriptive, while this is thoroughly supported by the results and discussion, it would be best to consider rewording some parts, for example:

Line 10-11, instead of making this conclusion, consider giving an example or statement.

Line 50, the use of the word "controversial", perhaps find a more appropriate word, or supporting sentence must show that MSWI is controversial due to x x x reasons.

These comments are more on form and style rather than substance. So I am happy to accept the paper as is, as it has already gone through a round of revisions.

The conclusions and findings in this paper are significant, especially on the counterproductivity of incinerators in the decarbonization of the electric grid. The data and methods are sound and the conclusions achieved in the study are well-supported by reliable data. How the findings translate to policy are also presented clearly.

Thank you for putting together a timely and important paper that should be considered in the US policy on renewable subsidies as the country seeks to decarbonise its energy sector.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes: Ellice Dane Ancheta

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

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Waste incinerators undermine clean energy goals

PCLM-D-22-00078R3

Dear Dr. Tangri,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Waste incinerators undermine clean energy goals' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Laurence L Delina

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #3: No

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: No

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #3: No

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #3: No

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #3: The author's idea is great, but the innovation of the method is not enough.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #3: No

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