Plasma Technology Turns Trash into Gas
An Atlanta, GA-based company called Geoplasma is using trash to provide power to 50,000 homes in Florida. The company’s plasma refuse plant, which should be online by 2011, is a first for the United States. It will process 1,500 tons of garbage each day and send 60 MW of power to the grid.
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Geoplasma’s technology works by blasting garbage with a stream of plasma (superheated gas). The trash is vaporized into pressurized gas that spins a turbine to create electricity.
Plasma garbage disposal has a number of advantages—emissions are lower than with normal incineration, and it reduces both methane release and landfill volume. Additionally, power prices are projected to be the same as with electricity generated from natural gas.
Many small plasma plants already exist in other parts of the world, so expect Geoplasma’s inaugural US plant to be the first of many.
Photo Credit: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
US states are not held accountable for recycling let alone garbage.
I can’t drop-off paint cans or solvents containers at my only recycling station for my 150,000 pop. metro. without an appointment on two business days during business hours only!
We shouldn’t be creating questionable gasses with the 4th state of energy- plasma. What we we need is a Real recycling and refuse law, with Real consequences.
btw, I called my metro recycling plant to ask them what to do with the 75 alkaline batteries I’ve saved up and they said “throw them in the garbage”. Twice. Try it yourself.
this technology has alot more potential than recycling.
re-cycling is a good thing to do, and i would recommend it, but it can’t always be performed, this technology has a unique benifit of being able to break down metals, plastics and vapourise them into thier raw elements, so you get a large amount of gases release which can be burnt and turned into energy, and also molten ’slag’ which can then be sifted and sorted and solt off back to market for manufacturing, as this slag will be rich with various metals and other such things. it takes alot of energy to create this super heated plasma, but alot of this can be recovered using standard steam turbine technology.
for more info, this is a good place to start…
http://science.howstuffworks.com/plasma-converter.htm
[...] but never thought it would be online and providing commercial power so soon. How cool is that? Plasma Technology Turns Trash into Gas : CleanTechnica PS - is this the right energy topic to talk about Plasma Gasification in? Joe [...]
The article is very poorly written.
The plasma torches I am familiar with are from Westinghouse who has worked on them for 30 years or more.
Air is superheated with electric plasma torches - you do not blast the garbage with anything. One of the advantages of the plasma torch is that you can maintain low airflow through the material which is to be gasified.
The gas is then cooled to the point where it can be run through heat exchangers to preheat incoming air. Depending on the energy balance a boiler may possibly be used to recapture additional heat.
Due to the relatively low air/gas flow it is easier to clean the gas stream.
First class gas cleaning is needed as due to the high operating temperatures very fine particles are generated.
It is a good process but you are talking about megawatts of power to feed the torches.
I am not sure about ’sorting. the goodies out of the slag. I believe it will truly be liquified and then solidified and nothing more than slag which can be landfilled safely.