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Plasma Plants Vaporize Trash While Creating Energy
Jason Sahler writes "Recently St. Lucie County in Florida announced that it has teamed up with Geoplasma to develop the United States' first plasma gasification plant. The plant will use super-hot 10,000 degree Fahrenheit plasma to effectively vaporize 1,500 tons of trash each day, which in turn spins turbines to generate 60MW of electricity — enough to power 50,000 homes!"
Most of what we produce, most 'trash' is going to be hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. So I have to wonder, is this 'burning' it, or is it going to be producing diatomic hydrogen and oxygen? Does anyone have any experience with plasma gasification that could explain why this wouldn't produce unwanted byproducts from the gaseous components cooling down?
10,000 degrees fahrenheit is around 5,600 degrees celcius, which is approximately the surface temperature of the sun.
If ever the whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag were appropriate...
From working with a garbage to energy plant in Virginia, they had the ability to generate much more then the 80MW (from memory) they were generating. They had to impose the limit or they would qualify as a utility under the state guidelines, and be subject to regulation. Since the plant was privately owned, and wanted run themselves, they had to let a lot of the power go as heat.
They would regulate it some by the rate at which the garbage went in, but when it starts backing up, you have no choice but to burn it.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
exactly. it's unlikely that the initial electric charge will require more energy than is produced by the 1500 tons of garbage it burns each day (and presumably the plant stays on for more than a day at a time).
though i think a diesel engine is perhaps a better analogy since normal gas ICEs need an electrically-generated spark for each cycle, whereas a diesel engine uses compression-ignition thus only requires electricity for the initial compression stroke, after which point the engine is self-sustaining. so in this case the trash being vaporized is like the diesel fuel which is capable of sustaining the reaction on its own once the process is started.
in any case, this sounds like a great way to kill two birds with one stone. so long as the plasma plant doesn't generate any toxic waste or cause heat pollution it'd be a great way to get energy in practically any environment. now we just need to get more plug-in electrics on the road so that our transportation infrastructure can take advantage of cool sustainable technologies like this.
Their web site just screams "vaporware". In fact, the useful-scale project has been cancelled, and only a small "demonstration plant" will be built.
To respond to these two points.
1. This is an established technology, even though it hasn't been commercial for all that long.
2. A lot of projects are being cancelled as collateral damage from the mortgage meltown.
To respond to the rest of your post:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/plasma-converter.htm/printable
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I was thinking exactly the same thing - I'm still sceptical, certainly, but the Scientific American story that's linked from the one above does say that "it will process 1,500 tons of garbage a day, sending 60 megawatts of electricity to the power grid (after using some to power itself).". They're definitely trying to claim that they've found a way to use random waste as a fuel source, which would be a breakthrough if true.
What worries me is a quick Google of the company. One of the top links is this interview with the company president. The fact that he keeps talking about "megawatts of energy per hour" puts my cynicism into overdrive - sure, it's not entirely damning; maybe the engineers are sitting hanging their heads at how the president doesn't understand what they're doing, but when the likelihood of their claims actually being what they say they are is this low, that really isn't who they need at the helm.
I was thinking exactly the same thing - I'm still sceptical, certainly, but the Scientific American story that's linked from the one above does say that "it will process 1,500 tons of garbage a day, sending 60 megawatts of electricity to the power grid (after using some to power itself).". They're definitely trying to claim that they've found a way to use random waste as a fuel source, which would be a breakthrough if true.
Using random waste as fuel source has been done already. Using random waste as a clean fuel source, now that's really a breakthrough. And if this process works the way I think it does, it should be pretty clean, no matter what you throw in.
Except for CO2 probably, which is kinda hard to prevent, and rather a big issue lately. I hope they can capture it in something safe. And if they can't, well, CO2 is still quite a lot better than dioxins.
I hate to be that guy on /. who can't take a joke, but... brine shrimp have a really important niche role in the food chain. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but basically without brine shrimp and things like it, there would be none of the larger tasty fish that we like so much to eat so much. This is why it drives conservationists nuts when people bitch and moan about environmental regulations aimed at protecting something which seems insignificant to the layperson. You fail to see the interconnectedness of it all.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
As I remember, farm raised catfish and free-range chickens get a 1:1 corn-protein to meat-protein ratio, mainly because they also eat bugs (or in China, the catfish/shrimp eat chicken poop.)
For cows, I think the number was either 8:1 or 20:1.
So yes, the poster who suggested that this is why everyone can't be a vegetarian is wrong. But I don't put it down to math. I put it down to his spouting off without having any actual facts.
Just as an aside, I might mention that this plant will likely poison the ground around it with such things as cadmium (NiCad, NimH batteries), mercury (coin batteries, thermometers... hospitals burn these up all the time), lead, arsenic, and other heavy metals.
The real shame is that a lot of these heavy metals actually should be classified, like gold, as precious metals. Right now when we are in deflation (with a specter of possibly hyperinflation once the credit bubble has burst), those metals are one of the few things that will maintain value.
I'd think that a few chemists who sat down and found a way to properly reclaim the lithium and other metals, could make a killing by collecting and sorting the waste, and then disposing of the non-toxic waste in standard ways, while mining the waste for all it's worth. The earlier you sort it, the higher your profits will be. Sorting a NimH from a NiCad will save a lot of extra effort and energy on the back end.
Then, as you identify more wastes (and the typical condition that it arrives in), then you can figure out a way to profit from that, too.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
This process will NOT "create" energy. In fact, I doubt it will have any more efficiency than the current conventional methods of turning trash into useful components. Keep in mind that vaporization of any solids from room temperature it going to take a massive amount of energy. Spinning turbines with the gasses until it condenses is an obvious step to take, but there is a lot of legislation that can be made to supplant the need for more technology. Just take a look at Germany. You can get a hefty fine for putting a can in the bio-degradable receptacle, but those guys have one helluva disposal system.
Way to have no idea what you're talking about. I've read several articles on this process and the man behind it.
Yes, it takes a lot of energy to start the reaction and form the initial plasma. Once it is started, however, as long as it is fed fuel (garbage, or any compound matter), the reaction will continue. The process completely breaks apart whatever is fed to it into its elementary components, thus effectively neutralizing virtually every known toxin and hazardous substance, the only exception is radioactive elements which cannot be broken down any further without undergoing a nuclear reaction.
Regarding energy output, this method produces energy in the form of heat from the plasma itself which can be harnessed and it produces syngas. Both of which are useful. this process has been in trials for some time now and has been proven to work. The reason everyone isn't running to it is that the plants are expensive to build, and never been done wide scale before. It's a new tech that the people with cities to run and people to protect are dubious about. New York and Ottawa Canada both plan on having plasma gasification plants, afaik.
Think of it like a really big fire. To start a fire a lot of initial energy is needed. Once it is started, it will keep going as long as it has fuel. The bonds in all molecules contain energy. This process breaks those bonds and release the energy and the result of the process is salable, environmentally friendly materials.
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.