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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."
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?
God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.