page_title: Kalundborg Eco-industrial Park
section_title: Savings and Environmental Impacts
hierarchical_section_title: Kalundborg Eco-industrial Park / Savings and Environmental Impacts
caption_attribution_description: English: A table illustrating annual wastes avoided at Kalundborg as of 1997
context_page_description: Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park is an industrial symbiosis network located in Kalundborg, Denmark, in which companies in the region collaborate to use each other's by-products and otherwise share resources.
  The Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park is the first full realization of industrial symbiosis. The collaboration and its environmental implications arose unintentionally through private initiatives, as opposed to government planning, making it a model for private planning of eco-industrial parks. At the center of the exchange network is the Asnæs Power Station, a 1500MW coal-fired power plant, which has material and energy links with the community and several other companies. Surplus heat from this power plant is used to heat 3500 local homes in addition to a nearby fish farm, whose sludge is then sold as a fertilizer. Steam from the power plant is sold to Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical and enzyme manufacturer, in addition to Statoil oil refinery. This reuse of heat reduces the amount thermal pollution discharged to a nearby fjord. Additionally, a by-product from the power plant's sulfur dioxide scrubber contains gypsum, which is sold to a wallboard manufacturer.
context_section_description: Since its start over 25 years ago, Kalundborg has been operating successfully as an eco-industrial park. One of the main goals of industrial symbiosis is to make goods and services that use the least-cost combination of inputs. These relationships were formed on an economic and environmental basis. As mentioned above, there are over thirty exchanges occurring in Kalundborg. While Kalundborg does operate using trades between various firms in the vicinity, it itself is not self-sufficient or contained to the industrial park. There are many trades that occur with companies outside of this park region.
  All of these exchanges have contributed to water savings, and savings in fuel and input chemicals. Wastes were also avoided through these interchanges. For example, in 1997, Asnaes (the power station) saved 30,000 tons of coal (~2% of throughput) by using Statoil (large oil refinery) fuel gas. And 200,000 tons of fly ash and clinker were avoided from Asnaes landfill. These resources savings and waste avoidances, documented before 1997, are illustrated in the tables to the right.
  A study in 2002 showed that these exchanges also contributed to more than 95% of the total water supply to the power plant. This is up from 70% in 1990.  So, the system is becoming more comprehensive in its ability to save groundwater, however, there is still room for improvement. Out of the 1.2 million m³ of wastewater discharged from Statoil (the refinery), only 9000 m³ were reused at the power plant.
  More recent numbers show a vast improvement, when comparing to the numbers from 1997, in resource savings. Data from around 2004 show annual savings of 2.9 million cubic meters of ground water, and 1 million cubic meters of surface water. Gypsum savings are estimated around 170,000 tons, and sulfur dioxide waste avoidance is estimated around 53 Tn. These numbers are mostly estimations. Aspects of the eco-industrial park have changed, and there are many levels to consider when doing these calculations. All together though, these interchanges have shown annual savings of up to $15 million (US), with investments around $78.5 million (US). The total accumulated savings is estimated around $310 million (US).
caption: Annual wastes avoided in Kalundborg as of 1997
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