Plasma Gasification: The End of Landfills?

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What to Do with All of That Garbage? Recycle It!

Plasma gasification takes garbage of nearly any type and turns it into an environmental boon for any town with a landfill. The complicated machines that perform this green service are called plasma converters.

Explore this lens to learn more about the process and its promise for land reclamation and use as a renewable energy source. Learn how we can at least take the enormous piles of waste created by urban sprawl and turn them into something useful. Please drop a note in my guestbook if you have feedback or links to share.

How Can Plasma Gasification Help the Environment?

Here's the simple version.

The idea runs as follows. You take refuse - household garbage, old tires, industrial and hazardous waste, used oil - and you use electricity to generate heat so intense that the items separate into their individual atoms. They system siphons the hydrogen and carbon monoxide created by organic matter off into a gas called "syngas" that, once cleaned, can be used as a fuel source much like natural gas.

Depending on the garbage put into the system, the rest of the material solidifies into a glass-like substance that can be used in roadways, abrasives, and tiles or a metal alloy that can be refined and re-used. The heat produced during the process can be captured to generate electricity, enough to both power the process and put into the power grid for others to use.

Where can you learn more about plasma gasification?

Understand how plasma converters turn trash into environmental treasure.

While the concept is relatively simple, the process and the outlooks for plasma gasification vary depending on who you ask. Read more at the sites linked below, including an automobile manufacturer and sites dedicated to green and clean fuels.
The Prophet of Garbage
Popular Science tells you how a plasma Converter turns our most vile and toxic trash into clean energy-and promises to make a relic of the landfill.
Waste-to-Energy: Plasma Gasification
"Plasma gasification will obliterate garbage and create energy," says Scream to be Green.
Plasma Gasification Transforms Garbage into Clean Energy
InventorSpot explores the possibilities of plasma conversion.
GM Blog: Alternative Fuels
Coskata Comes One Step Closer to Producing $1 per Gallon Ethanol - from Garbage.
Safe Waste and Power - The Plasma Gasification Process
In plasma gasification, fuel or waste is fed to a reactor vessel where an electrically generated plasma at a temperature of 20,000 C? is present. When the fuel or waste is exposed to the plasma it is heated to a very high temperature (>2,000C?)...
HowStuffWorks: Plasma Converters
Plasma converters generate electricity for our homes by burning trash. This article has some terrific pictures and a little movie explaining how the plasma works on garbage.

Get In-Depth about Renewable Energy and Plasma Gasification

Reading on-line makes for excellent quick learning, but nothing gives you the big picutre like a book. Check out these titles covering renewable energy sources, the economics and uses of gasification, and making your life greener.
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Videos that Demonstrate Plasma Gasification

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Plasma Gasification News and Views

US Air Force Awards Plasma Gasification Contract
The US Air Force 1st Special Operations Civil Engineering Squadron has awarded a contract to Montreal based waste to energy plasma gasification specialist, PyroGenesis Canada, to operate and maintain its Plasma Resource Recovery System (PRRS) at the ...
Taneytown decides to send basic letter of support to ALFA
TANEYTOWN ? After much discussion about the proper tone to express in a letter, the Taneytown City Council agreed Monday night to send a letter of support for a plasma gasification plant to the company proposing to build one in Taneytown.
Taneytown learns more about gasification plant proposal
TANEYTOWN ? Despite rumors circulating the city that ALFA Group LLC had selected a site in Taneytown for a plasma gasification plant to dispose of 1500 to 3000 tons per day of municipal solid waste, a company representative and city officials told ...
High-Powered Plasma Turns Garbage Into Gas
It uses plasma gasification, a technology that turns trash into a fuel without producing emissions. In other words: a guilt-free solution to our waste problems. Recycling is all well and good. But it hardly addresses the real problem we have with our ...

Where do you stand on garbage, landfills, and gasification?

Please share your thoughts and ideas with me, as well as any sites that may help get the word out about this promising technology.

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  • Reply
    onepiecefans Dec 4, 2010 @ 12:17 pm | delete
    great post, what the different about plasma gasification and gasification?

    comment at mine please : http://www.squidoo.com/gasification-an-investment-in-our-energy-future
  • Reply
    Chandler Sep 11, 2009 @ 2:30 pm | delete
    This is a great collection of Plasma Gasification information. Thank you. I've just come across a company in my city, Plasma Waste Recycling, Inc, that has a working facility running now. While it seems to good to be true, it really uses decades proven technology from steel mills to create Plasma Gasification 2.0. Most previous Plasma methods use a Plasma torch, which actually incinderates, resulting in both emmissions and higher energy costs. They use it with graphite rods to reduce energy required for the process, thus creating a positive revenue generator while also eliminating the emissions problem. The only tough part is getting your city council people to be the first to make the multi-million dollar bet. More at www.plasma-wr.com
  • Reply
    trosquin Jul 22, 2009 @ 4:33 pm | delete
    Sweet...I love Plasma! Yes trash would be a great source of power for our cars!
  • Reply
    HenryE Jun 10, 2009 @ 8:39 am | delete
    This is new to me and very interesting! I wonder if we'll see more growth in this technology over the next few years. Heaven knows we need some type of solution!
  • Reply
    starsam Feb 25, 2009 @ 11:06 pm | delete
    Your lens would be a great addition to the 'Solar Technology and Solar Energy' Group
    ( http://www.squidoo.com/groups/solar )
    Feel free to add it anytime!
  • Reply
    davewashere Oct 21, 2008 @ 10:00 am | delete
    I read an article in Wired about this last year. Seems like this could be the type of technology that could really have a huge impact on the world. If only governments had the resources to invest in this as much as they invest in new technologies for hurting people.
  • Reply
    legbamel Oct 5, 2008 @ 10:24 pm | delete
    I thought it was time more people learned about the possibilities. Thanks for stopping by!
  • Reply
    clairs Oct 5, 2008 @ 7:37 am | delete
    Wow thats incredible
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