An Alternative to "Cold Fusion" : Plasma Gasification

The Coffee Shop
1

In another thread, the idea of cold fusion is rightfully debunked. But there IS a technology that is coming online that has the potential to dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels: Plasma Gasification, or Plasma Arc Waste Disposal.

In a nut shell, compressed air is passed through an electical arc, much like a hair dryer, only heated to 8000+ degrees F. This hot gas heats up garbage or waste products and reduces it to elemental compounds, mainly in gaseous form. The gases are pulled off, separated and extracted for industrial use, or to power turbines that generate electricty. Electricity for the arc consumes about 1/3 of the power generated, and leaves 2/3 available for use offsite.

This is not a perpetual motion device. There are no laws of thermodynamics broken here. The fuel is lots & LOTS of garbage…something Americans are uniquely gifted in producing.

This is also a proven technology. There are several operating plants in the world, and the technology, although expensive, is starting to filter down to the bigger cities.

The upshot is this: big cities like NYC or LA typically pay about $45/truck of garbage that they have to haul away and dispose. Having a plant like this nearby, the plant could accept the garbage for free, sell the electricity to the grid, and the city of LA or NYC see a huge reduction in cost. Even if the plants charge $10 per truck, the ***economic model still works for the cities. ***

Like all real technologies, there are downsides. Not all the waste gets burned. What’s left is a heavy metal laden type of vitreous rock, like obsidian. BUT since it won’t leak, since it won’t degrade over time, since it’s very stable and pretty tough, we can use it to line the walls of hazardous waste chambers, or in places where high temp refractory is needed.

I’ve been following this tech for about 10 years, and I’m pretty excited. Miami is investing something like 10 Billion dollars for a municipal plant, and they’re talking about emptying all the landfills in Florida withing 20 years. NYC is considering the same idea. They estimate that the land reclaimed from the landfills would be enough to grow most of the food for the city!

Go here to check it out:

http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/gasification/gasifipedia/4-gasifiers/4-1-4-1a_westinghouse.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_arc_waste_disposal

http://www.recoveredenergy.com/d_plasma.html

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/plasma-converter3.htm

2

there must be some downsides you are not mentioning otherwise it would be everywhere?

safety concerns? does the trash have to filtered first and certain things removed?

3

It’s starting to come online in a lot more places. Check the wiki article.

The main disadvantage is that it’s expensive. For the cost of a GP plant, you can buy multiple coal power plants.

The trash should be filtered, which increases labor, but it doesn’t have to be. Efficiency goes down and Slag produced goes up.

As far as safety, you have a power plant, and a recycling plant placed right next to each other, with temperatures as high as a steel mill, so while the hazards are compounded, they’re nothing that we don’t know how to handle.

Put it like this: I’d rather live next to a GP plant than a nuclear plant. :frowning:

But don’t take my word for it. Ask the US Navy’s Advanced Naval Warfare Center: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA519815 Page 13… They’re putting it on a carrier.

4

What happens if you feed it coal or natural gas instead of rubbish?

5

What happens if you feed it coal or natural gas instead of rubbish?

Well, I’m not an expert in the tech, but if you fed it coal, it would probably produce some form of natural gas type stuff, but it probably wouldn’t be as efficient as an actual coal plant. And since the point of the process is to produce a burnable gas, I’m not sure why you’d ever feed it NG.

6

Don’t tell chainpin, but one of the plants using this was trying to get federal loan guarantees to built their Massachusetts plant because it was too expensive otherwise. They eventually just canceled it earlier this year.

The problem with waste gasification is that you gasify some nasty shit. Lots of slag. Heavy metals. Random acidic gases. You don’t know what you are putting into it, so you can’t tell the heat content, projected efficiency, operating temperatures, waste and product streams, etc. Your cleanup system has to be pretty damn robust I imagine.

Probably a good idea if the primary purpose is to reduce/eliminate landfills. If your primary goal is to produce power then I’m not so sure.

7

I pretty much agree with all of that.

There are cheaper and cleaner ways to produce power, that’s for sure. BUT, the fuel for this is dirt cheap, and we produce a ton of it. Millions of tons, actually. I think the real goal has to be a more productive use for all that crap that ends up on the curb. Recycling only goes so far, so this seems a like a good technology to reclaim the rest. The ability to empty the landfills is really a bonus.

8

Being a father of toddlers, I often wonder at the diaper production. How much energy us in there?

The aircraft carrier application is interesting, having plentiful electricity from an onsite reactor(s) must help.

9

I pretty much agree with all of that.

There are cheaper and cleaner ways to produce power, that’s for sure. BUT, the fuel for this is dirt cheap, and we produce a ton of it. Millions of tons, actually. I think the real goal has to be a more productive use for all that crap that ends up on the curb. Recycling only goes so far, so this seems a like a good technology to reclaim the rest. The ability to empty the landfills is really a bonus.

The real goal should be reducing the amount of crap on the curb in the first place.
Which is also the problem with recycling. We have ideas of what to do with all this junk after we’ve used it up. We don’t want to stop producing the junk i.e. consuming so much, so much packaging, etc.

It is a lot more efficient than the lower temperature incinerators used in like Minneapolis and Denmark (almost 5% of Denmark’s energy comes from burning trash, and over 13% of their heat does).

10

There’s a tactical advantage with the carrier. The US Navy produces a lot of waste while at sea. If they’re close to shore, they have to leave formation to go farther out to dump the garbage in international waters. Usually this is about 200 mi out. So there’s an advantage to stay close to shore, and still be able to get rid of waste.