Plasma gasification

[Natorgator]

Today I read an article in Popular Mechanics (an older issue) about plasma gassification, in which basically a city's waste can be dumped inside a tube that gets burned up by plasma and outputs syngas and hydrogen. Plus it actually generates power in the process, and once it's turned on, can run on its own and even sell power back to the grid:

A demonstration facility Israel built by Environmental Energy Resources, Ltd. is scheduled to be converted into a commercial waste treatment facility. Russia has also expressed an interest in plasma gasification facilities, and currently uses plasma plants to treat low level nuclear waste in a plant outside of Moscow.

In the United States, Atlanta-based firm GeoPlasma is working with St. Lucie County in Florida to build and operate a plasma gasification plant. This plant would process all of the incoming waste for the county and begin to mine the existing landfill for waste. Once it is built, the facility will be able to process up to 1,000 tons of garbage per day and generate 67 MWh a day, with a net output of 33 MWh.

GeoPlasma has created a modular design for the plant, with two large plasma gasification chambers that will handle 500 tons per day. The modular design allows further expansion in the future – the proposed plan is to increase capacity to 3,000 tons of waste per day within a few years of operation. Engineers project that within 18 years, the existing landfill will be completely mined and treated. The electricity generated by the plant will be more than enough to power the 98,000 homes in the county.

Many areas across the nation are beginning to look into plasma gasification as a way to approach waste management. Several companies such as GeoPlasma, StarTech, Recovered Energy, Inc. and Plasco Energy Group are pioneers in bringing this technology into commercial use. Assuming the St. Lucie County project is a success, we may see more of these facilities commissioned across the nation soon.

I think this is a really exciting prospect because it kills two really big birds with one stone: getting rid of our garbage, and producing clean sustainable power at the same time. It certain processes (Startech's) it also produces hydrogen which could also be used for fuel cells, etc.

Thoughts? Anyone else heard about this?

[Steel]

Remember the end of back to the future when he dumps some crap into the "Mr Fusion"?

[freker]

plasma gassification will deal with most carbon-based garbage (like plastics) but it might not work very well with sulfur, phosphor and metals.