Vaporizing Garbage to Create Electricity

CaroKann writes "Geoplasma is planning to build a power plant in St. Lucie County, Florida that will generate electricity by vaporizing landfill trash and sewage treatment plant sludge with plasma arcs. It will be the first plant of its kind in the USA and the largest in the world. The power plant is expected to destroy 3000 tons of garbage, generating about 120 megawatts of electricity per day. The plant will also supply steam to a nearby Tropicana juice plant. The landfill is expected to be depleted in about 18 years. In addition, up to 600 tons of melted, hardened sludge will be produced each day and will be sold for road construction."

Comments

It's a waste of valuable garbage

[NixieBunny]

We'll be harvesting landfills in 100 years to get the materials (plastic stuff mostly) that our country is so busy paying China to manufacture, then buying and disposing of in said landfills. If all that fodder is vaporized for energy, we're screwed.

Sounds like a great plan...

[ossington]

With minimal impact, good usage of by products and so forth. The only problem is that if we can just zap away our inconvenient little problems (tonnes and tonnes of trash, for example), we will never do anything to curb our overzealous consumption. Doesn't sound like a sustainable idea in the grand scheme of things.

Re:Whence this vapor?

[LWATCDR]

Well most of that will be water vapor. I think this is great and worth trying. I do think that my opinion of this counts a lot more than most of the people posting on slashdot.
I happen to live in Port Saint Lucie, FL. If this meet the emissions standards which the small plants in Japan do then it will beat the daylights out of an other coal fired plant and get ride of that huge landfill.

Am I the only one who sees a disconnect here?

[vrmlguy]

"County officials estimate their entire landfill -- 4.3 million tons of trash collected since 1978 -- will be gone in 18 years."

"Geoplasma expects to recoup its $425 million investment, funded by bonds, within 20 years through the sale of electricity and slag."

Does this mean that during the last two years, St. Lucie County will be importing trash from other counties? What if those counties also build these things? Will "trash pirates" be raiding nearby landfills for material to burn?

Byproducts

[Xybot]

Sounds like a great idea but I'm still a bit skeptical about the composition of the byproducts. Contaminants like mercury don't simply go away, I assume they will be bound into the sludge portion of the byproduct, which is likely to be quite high given the fact that they are re-processing sewage.

What about the Dioxins from vapourised plastics, A plasma arc produces an incredible heat but Dioxins are also very resistant to being broken down in this way.

Sulphur? How is this kept out of the exhaust gases?